How’s my little pet today? Listening to Janie? Going to the pub? Reading to the Watsos? Or just thinking of Willie?
Am at another camp where I stayed last night.1Coomalie Creek Airfield Am moving up the road this afternoon where I shall pass the evening with the Sydney fellows from the Auto Club.2Believed to be Livingstone Airfield
Bristol Beaufighter, No. 31 Squadron RAAF, Coomalie Creek, N.T.
The crowd of pilots fly Beaufighters,3No. 31 (Beaufighter) Squadron RAAF a twin engined job used for strafing the nips on islands 300 to 400 miles from here. They are somewhat older than the Spitfire boys but are all in early twenties. The Commanding officer4Wing Commander C.F. Read is youngish tall, dark & could easily pass for a brother of Good-O. Something about his face is remarkably like her. The air force COs are much more friendly than their counterparts in the army. I suppose this is so because they are much younger.
An Army Liaison officer attached to this unit came up to me last night and asked if I was Wep. Said he thought he recognised me. Asked if I recollected trying to cook sausages with a blow lamp in the main street of Tamworth. He was at the dance at Tamworth Golf Club. Fancy coming 2,000 miles to have that brought up! Wep, my girl, is a name to be contended with! – A young chap of 23 took me in tow last night & fed me with a few whiskies. At ten o’clock we suppered on toast, asparagus and SARDINES! Sorry I can’t bring you any down but I am not supposed to buy anything from their mess store. In case you get the wrong idea that I am wallowing in epicurean luxury I might add that the usual mess meal is only too often blasted tinned bully beef – (tasteless goddamn stuff) & margarine which no one I have so far struck is inclined to eat. Dry Bread is the standing order now. It’s 3 weeks since the troops have had any butter. You can imagine my sufferings.
Typical sketch made on the fly, possibly near Coomalie Creek, Northern TerritorySketch colour and tone notes; possibly near Coomalie Creek, Northern Territory
This is the best camp I have been in. Situated on the slopes of one of the few hills around this country it is sprinkled amongst delightful open forest. Beautifully green trees, plenty of palms – and birds galore. Dawn is a rare pleasure – you wake to the low and penetrating calls of the birds, and the air is as soft & cool as a whisper.
Possibly at camp near Coomalie Creek Airfield, north west Australia
The shower is the coldest I’ve had up here – dispersed my crumbiness in a trice.
Camp shower, north west Australia
Gave the old sand fly bites their necessary scratchings & offed to breakfast of bully beef rissoles and tinned bacon. For heavens sake get some sucker down there to eat ours. I’ve completely had it. Practically every morning since I arrived. I never want to see it again. It dished up like limp ham boiled in washing up water.
I’m afraid you and I will have a few guests when I return. So many of the lads have been very kind to me. I have asked them all to give us a ring if & when they are in Sydney.
Hope to see you soon sweetheart. Better get all beautified for you birfday5Jess’s 35th birthday, September 5th., 1943. & little Will. Lots of kisses. Wish I was at Darwin in case I get a letter.
Bye, bye darling
Bill.
Beaufighter EH-Y, A19-70, No. 31 Squadron RAAF, Coomalie Creek, N.T.Warming up, Beaufighter, No. 31 Squadron RAAF, Coomalie Creek, N.T.Colour notes for Beaufighter, No. 31 Squadron RAAF, Coomalie Creek, N.T.Bristol Beaufighter, No. 31 Squadron RAAF, Coomalie Creek, N.T.Bristol Beaufighter, No. 31 Squadron RAAF, Coomalie Creek, N.T.Bristol Beaufighter, No. 31 Squadron RAAF Coomalie Creek, N.T.Coomalie Creek Airfield, 23 June 2023Coomalie Creek Airfield, 23 June 2023
I wish you were here to smother me. I’m not so damn hot this, for others, gay & cheerful morning. Some wild men from the hospital fixed me up last night. My dearest wish is that they suffer with me.
After being about the hospital grounds for three days I was invited to attend their formal mess. On these occasions there is supposed to be a little ceremony attached to the business of eating. In this case it was pretty free the only formality being the smart (but not from me) standing to attention & drinking the King’s health. The port was passed – somehow or other – due either to the shortage of decanters or the shape of the table – the grog was passed the wrong way round. Previous to going over the beer ration arrived & rather than pass it by I downed the bottle with great expediency (you wouldn’t know him). Vic Bitter it were & booful cold. Had a coupla gins before dinner, then the port & back to gin after the meal. Managed to do myself up fairly nicely with 3 majors. I repeat, I am not so hot. Hangovers in hot weather are not recommended.
Am going back to the home town today. It will be a hellova treat to get some clean clothes & a spot of spine-bashing. (Why lying down on bed is called spine-bashing is beyond me.) Darling, I love you. Our old friends from Admiralty House are due up here any tick of the clock. I will not be calling on them. May leave my card though. I don’t seem to be getting through the work very rapidly. Hope to start on the air force next week. Miss you a lot. Am working diligently when hangovers are not on deck. It is bloody hot work standing at an easel during the day. I should imagine I have lost quite a bit of weight what with the sweating & lousy sleeping.
Big wedding on at Darwin this afternoon. One of the doctors going off with a sister.
Am looking forward to your letters. Quite an event to return to Correspondents’ mess & receive my mail. Forgive me, dear, not writing more at the moment. I really am very faint. The old blood pressure wouldn’t squash a fly. – Plenty of love to you darling from little Willie.
Love to Mum & Dad. Hope they got my telegram on the right day.1Jess’s father, George Alexander Graham celebrated his 79th birthday on Sunday, August 1, 1943
Notes:
1
Jess’s father, George Alexander Graham celebrated his 79th birthday on Sunday, August 1, 1943
I have just received your letter dated the first night you spent at Bright . It was a great treat to hear all about the doings of yourself & Bub. I mean, young Master Graham. You tell that silly young galoot to stay putting on weight till dadda comes home – and for you, my girl forget not the dangers of gross eating at your mother’s place because I would like to see you wearing pyjamas and the top that the Chinese affect in these parts. Many of the women are smooth and pleasant in the features and they do their hair into beautiful slick plaits and buns. Their clothes are always immaculately laundered and are cut to a close fitting finish. The whole ensemble of colour, sleekness and daintiness of figure gives to them an almost doll like quality and frugility.
I have been trying to get one of those straw hats like
but am meeting with no success as they seem to be made only for personal use and in any case I am stuck for means of transport to where I might pick one up. There is actually nothing about – one has to realise that 3 weeks or so ago this area was still in Japanese hands and that the RAAF have blown all the shopping areas to bits in all the places I have been to. Naturally all the saleable commodities went with the wind as well.
Thanks to your old man’s snooping habits and mechanical genius he has the pleasure to be able to write this letter in solitary silence.
This morning I found under the house a crate full of old and rusted Japanese lamps – with a great deal of fossicking I managed to find a couple of poor things, the wicks of which I could just get to move – mostly downward. Only one is functioning at the moment and is giving out every bit of 2 candle power. It is a queer doover shaped so
you put the kerosene if you can get any in here.
The whole caboosal measures only 8″ x 6 ” and is extremely temperamental, Two of them have already given up the ghost – the wicks disappearing in the depths of the oil. Because of the grievous shortage of kerosene I cannot call on any of the reserves I have planted by my side. Any smudges or runnings of oils you may discern on this page are to be accounted for by the leakings in the roof. It has been raining for 5 minutes and already one side of this table is sporting a pool of water which is poppily dripping from the broken shingles above. One earnest blob has just fractured the hot lamp glass.
I’m afraid this is the finish of this letter tonight. The tide is sweeping over the table at an alarming rate. To bed, my dear, to bed – and safety. Goodnight. It’s coming down in bloody sheets.
Monday 6th August. 5pm.
Am at a place by the name of Papar which has the pleasure of a complete blackout at night. Hence this hurried scrawl as I have to bathe and eat before I settle down for a dreary night. I’m damned if I can sleep after 3.30 am I get to bed too early. It is not light till 7.00 so I pass some pretty dull hours – their only enlivenment being thoughts of you and Graham. It is raining again – everyday for that matter. This place is on the perimeter and is about 30 miles by jeep train from Beaufort. I came up this morning – took about 4 hours. It is a much more pleasant place than Beaufort. Coming into this area we travelled through some nice open country, paddy fields on either side were dotted with thatched huts, natives using water buffalo to pull their ploughs, and in the distance the foothills & blue mountains cut across by low lying clouds. The Japs are over there. Flanking the railway line the swampy channels are covered with water hyacinths like we have at home and all carry a profusion of purple blooms. The whole landscape is a harmony of white, blue, green & lilac. Very good. Climate is fairly cool but I’m sure it is more an illusion than anything else – as I sweat just as much.
Have just had tea and things are lightening up a bit – I find that the approaching darkness was due more to the storm than to the time of the day. The thunder was a terrific accompanyment to the deluge which has just finished and has left the whole of the vivid greens in sight floating on pools of yellow muddy water. Under this light the leaves and grass are an intense green, the green that car headlights sometimes show up. This is a hell of a fertile country.
I will be returning to Beaufort tomorrow & Wednesday to Labuan from where I hope to get to Balik Papan within a few days. I shall probably spend a week there & then think of returning home which will, with transport holdups, take a week or longer. I am not particularly sanguine about my chances of getting back by the 24th. But will make every effort to do so. Whacko the anniversary! We’ll let the young man have his second champagne – that is if you haven’t scoffed it all yet. I will certainly be back for your birthday.
Lots of love to you, Graham & Mum from the travel bound
Willie
Jeep train at Beaufort, BorneoJeep Train – The retreating Japanese had blown up all the steam locomotives so the Army modified Jeeps to haul the wagons and flatbedsJeep train studyTrain station at BeaufortTrain station at BeaufortTrain station at BeaufortTrain station at PaparChurch of the Holy Rosary, PaparPossibly at Jesselton on the Jesselton to Papar lineThe Jeep train runs through rubber tree plantations which at times form an arch overhead
[Note: Wep’s return to Beaufort coincided with the Childrens’ Carnival held on August 8, 1945; organised by members of the 2/43rd Australian Infantry Battalion. Wep described the carnival in a story he wrote for the Women’s Weekly, (1945 ‘Soldiers in North talk and dream of home.’, The Australian Women’s Weekly (1933 – 1982), 8 September, p. 17, viewed 16 May, 2013, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47246573)
“At Beaufort the army put on a carnival day for the children of the district. The natives swarmed in by train, in boxcars and flat-tops. They squatted and huddled together tight as a bunch of grapes and quietly soaked in the drenching rain. In the boxcars native orchestras “gave out” and were “in the groove” in several different tunes. The penetrating boom of the gongs and the light melodic harmony of the gamelins (a xylophonic saucepan affair) burrowed through the dusk and rain. It was a great day for Beaufort. The children laughed at the soldiers and the soldiers laughed at the natives. Pillow fights and obstacle races, lolly-water and fireworks, Malay dances and Chinese singing, jeep rides, speeches and fraternisation, Miss Beaufort competition and ceremonial tea drinking – it was all there. British administrators considered with gloomy foreboding the Australian “spoiling of the native”. At 11.30 p.m. they straggled home – grandpas, grandmas, dads, and mums with sleeping kids swung in “cuddle seats” made of gaily coloured scarves.”]
Scenes around Beaufort at the Children’s Carnival held on August 8, 1945Scenes around Beaufort at the Children’s Carnival held on August 8, 1945Scenes around Beaufort at the Children’s Carnival held on August 8, 1945Scenes around Beaufort at the Children’s Carnival held on August 8, 1945Scenes around Beaufort at the Children’s Carnival held on August 8, 1945A gamelin being playedA gamelin being played at the Beaufort Children’s CarnivalScenes around Beaufort at the Children’s Carnival on August 8, 1945Scenes around Beaufort at the Children’s Carnival on August 8, 1945Scenes around Beaufort at the Children’s Carnival on August 8, 1945
We are anxious to send our artist, W.E. Pidgeon – (Wep), to Borneo to do a series of paintings and black and white pictures for us.
Wep went to New Guinea for us and produced a number of pictures which we published in our issue of June 10, 1944. In January of this year he went to Morotai under the auspices of the R.A.A.F. and the results of his work appeared in our special R.A.A.F. issue on April 21, 1945.
I should be glad if you would let me know as soon as possible whether we have your permission to send him. I understand he has had all the necessary inoculations.
but am meeting with no success as they seem to be made only for personal use and in any case I am stuck for means of transport to where I might pick one up. There is actually nothing about – one has to realise that 3 weeks or so ago this area was still in Japanese hands and that the RAAF have blown all the shopping areas to bits in all the places I have been to. Naturally all the saleable commodities went with the wind as well.
you put the kerosene if you can get any in here.![[Jeep train study, Borneo]](http://wepidgeon.com/pidgeonpost/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/WEP-45-A-3376-D.jpg)
