TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL HISTORY RECORDING

Accession number S00988

Title (372606 / VX3511) Gullett, Henry Baynton Somer ‘Jo’ (Major)

Interviewer Connell, Daniel

Place made 12 Stewart Street, Griffith ACT 2603

Date made 24 October 1990

Description Henry Baynton Somer 'Jo' Gullett as a major, 2/6 Battalion, interviewed by Daniel Connell for The Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia in the War of 1939- 45. Soldier, member of parliament, and diplomat. Gullett was one of the handful of Australian officers at the Normandy landings. The son of Sir Henry Gullett, one of the Australian official historians of the First World War, 'Jo' Gullett was a Melbourne journalist when he enlisted in the AIF in 1939. Educated at Oxford and the Sorbonne, he had inherited an old fashioned sense of honour and duty. 'We knew England's position was very serious and that we should help her as our fathers had done. It was the order of things.'

When Australian troops first went into action at Bardia, Libya, in January 1941, Gullett was there as an infantry sergeant. He was wounded in the taking of Post 11, which the Italians had stoutly defended, but rejoined his battalion in time to serve as an officer in the ill-fated Greek campaign. He later fought in New Guinea and was awarded the Military Cross for his ‘disregard of danger and [for] leadership’.

In 1944 Gullett was one of the few Australian soldiers sent to Europe to take part in the British D-Day operations. He HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 2 of 32

was able to get an appointment with an infantry battalion. Soon afterwards he was made a company commander with The Royal Scots, and served with them during the further fighting until again wounded on 17 July. A staff job awaited him on his return to Australia.

While others may have seen boredom and disruption in war service, Gullett found some ‘colour, music and a touch of glory in that life’. His account of his experiences, Not as duty only (1976) is a classic of Australian war literature. His part in the fighting at Bardia is depicted in Ivor Hele’s famous painting, 2/6th Battalion Attack on Post 11 at Bardia.

Gullett followed in his father’s footsteps when he entered parliament in 1946; he was elected the Member for Henty. He became the Chief Government Whip (1950-55) in the Menzies’ Liberal Government. He was Australian Ambassador to Greece (1965-68), before returning to farming at ‘Lambrigg’ property, Tharwa, in the Australian Captial Territory.

HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 3 of 32

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HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 4 of 32

START OF TAPE ONE - SIDE A

Identification: This is side one, tape one. Interview with Mr Henry Gullett, nickname 'Jo'. The date is 24th October 1990 and I am Daniel Connell the interviewer. End of identification.

Right. Mr Gullett, at the beginning of the war could you tell me what you were doing and how you then proceeded to move from that into the army?

Well, at the beginning of the war I was a newspaper reporter in the Melbourne Herald, a pretty junior one, too.

Do you remember the night?

No.

The Sunday night?

Yes, I do. But as a matter of fact I was at that time in camp because I was a member of what were then called the Commonwealth - the CMF - Commonwealth Military Forces and we were, the great numbers of us, purely amateur soldiers, you know. But it became obvious that war .... That we were going to have a war with Hitler and probably with Japan and I had done some previous military training. I held no rank and didn't apply for any. But, any rate, early in .... No, in '38 I think the Government decided that the various CMF units should be called up for increased training to fit them for some sort of useful service. And the battalion I belonged to was the Royal Melbourne Regiment, the 6th Battalion, and we were actually in camp. And we'd already done about a month that year but .... And we were getting then tolerably efficient of course. Not really, but at any rate, we were a handleable unit and I was in camp with them.

And after not very long the government announced there would be a second AIF and we had battalion parade in the camp down there at Mount Martha somewhere, and on the sea - very pleasant. And we were asked, you know, the men were asked .... We were all asked for volunteers. And not many volunteered because that battalion was rather keen that it should enlist as a battalion and that wasn't the intention of the army at all. They wanted to build their own regiments and they were quite right in that too as things turned. At any rate ...

Well, maybe we should elaborate on that later at some stage but that is an interesting remark. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 5 of 32

Well, you know, in a volunteer home serving force you are obviously going to get men who are just keen but too old or unfit and - physically and in other respects - not up to war standards. Anyhow ...

Also, perhaps with antiquated attitudes that you might want ...

I don't think that applied too much.

Right.

At any rate, twenty-odd of us volunteered and we were sent home and told to report at a depot in Flinders Street Station the following day, which we did. And, you know .... So any rate, you asked what I was doing before and what I happened to be doing, you know, when war broke out. Of course my father was a member of cabinet and he used to speak very frankly in front of his family and we knew what was going to happen before I'd gone away to this camp. And I had a few days at home before we were asked to go - or told to go to Seymour.

(5.00) Then during that period they appointed General Blamey, or the War Cabinet did, as commander of the 6th Australian Division. That was the first division raised and it was obvious of course that he was going to be commander of the whole AIF force. And I remember my father talking about that at dinner one night and my mother questioning him and he said, 'I think we are very lucky to have Blamey because', he said, 'he's partly politician you know', and he said, 'He knows that governments have not got absolute powers; they can only go so far as their people will support them in going'. He said, 'In that we're lucky in Blamey, and another respect is that he knows something about the British'. And he said, 'We've got to have someone who can stand up to the British because we don't want any force we raise broken up into small units and put under British command'. So that, of course, has nothing to do with me really. But I happen to know it purely because my father was in Menzies' war cabinet which was formed immediately.

I mean, that's important that sort of ...

I think it is important.

Blamey was a very controversial figure before the war period, wasn't he?

Well, he was I suppose. There's no doubt he was an highly efficient officer under Monash and that's where he must have learnt a great deal - and Brudenell White too. And, of course, he'd been chief of police in Melbourne at a difficult time. I, you know, knew nothing about his ... HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 6 of 32

Some sort of royal commission at one stage?

I don't know anything about that. You see, I'd be too young to have taken any interest in those sort of things.

But he must have maintained, well, not must have .... For him to be the choice - because he wasn't actually a member of the regular forces at that time .... There must have been some officers in the regular forces who would have expected one of their own senior people to have ...

Certainly there were. Yes, certainly there were. That caused some ill-feeling afterwards among regular - senior regular officers. Of course, what did I know about that? Absolutely nothing but at the most I was a company commander. And ...

I'm just thinking about that gossip around the dinner table angle of it.

Well, you see, my father wasn't the sort of man who considered those things either when it came to a senior appointment. Suitability was all that concerned him. He did say that in some ways he'd like to have had General Glasgow - General Sir William Glasgow - but he after all was a Boer War veteran. And he said, 'I'd have liked Glasgow because Bill has got a moral force which I think is important in the head of an army or,' he said, 'General Gellibrand'. 'But' he said - he was great friends with both of them - but he said, 'But 'Gelli' certainly, he's a Boer War man too and he is certainly too old and he's not strong like - Sir William was at least that'. So he said, 'Tagging right along, I think we're very lucky to get Blamey'.

And if you want .... I think it would be more suitable to talk about any ill-feelings later on - but you must remember that all I know about that is very much second-hand. The sort of thing I picked at the Naval and Military Club when I became a member in, what, about 1942 or '3 - '3 or '4 .... No, '2 or '3.

I was just interested particularly because your father being in Cabinet and I think Minister for the Army or ...

No. Information.

Information.

Yeah. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 7 of 32

So that's why I was honing on the particular area. Well, coming to the subject that we were talking about before because, as I was saying, I don't think we should go through systematically the things you've described so well in your book, but just to build on some of those things. The subject that you start the book with is the nature of an efficient battalion. Now, thinking of that particular idea, what was the state of the .... When you went into this AIF unit and all these people were milling around, what sort of group did you have there?

Well, their average age for a start was twenty-six or seven. I remember my father asked me that question and I've forgotten the exact answer - but that is about right. And he said, 'That is an exactly right age for soldiers in my opinion, physically and mentally'. You've got to remember I was, myself, twenty-four, had turned twenty-five in the first week or two of it. But we had all grown up in an age when there was compulsory military training in Australia. So that from the age of twelve schoolboys learned how to drill. From the age of fourteen - no, a bit more than that. But in my case fourteen because I went to a private school where the school corps as it was .... Not only in private or church schools but in a great many, what they call in Victoria 'State' or in this State, 'public' schools, they were equally proud of their cadet corps.

Now, therefore this twenty-six age group had, until they were seventeen or eighteen, been instructed in - not what we could call the military arts but they were disciplined and obedient. They knew the necessity for these things. So we can't think of them as a rabble or the sort of chap you might expect that you would inevitably pick up. If today you asked for 100,000 volunteers the great majority of them would have no military training whatever. They couldn't even march in step or form up in lines.

(10.00) One of the .... At the very beginning of the war, there was quite a lot of division on the left wing side about the war particularly as the 'phoney war' as it was called by some, progressed. A lot of left wing people were critical and that term 'economic recruits' was one term that was used as a bit of a slur.

Yes, it was. And, indeed, I am aware of that because, of course, as I say, I was a junior newspaper reporter in the Melbourne Herald, and obviously journalism attracts a lot of able left-wing young men. But .... And some of them were declared communist. I mean, you know, they went round handing out the literature and that sort of thing and there was a Left Book Club.

But quite apart from the fact that a lot of them enlisted in the AIF immediately, they didn't take that with them. But one or two .... We had a fairly good security service, you know - even in those days - because fellas who looked the least troublesome, once we got all into camp together, were, on one excuse and another, weeded out just as the physically incapable or the - it's not necessary to say. I mean, they could throw you out on anything: your teeth or your eyesight or any physical defect at all. But they didn't have to give answers. They just HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 8 of 32

said that, you know, not suitable material, should be transferred to something else - some other branch of the service. Of course, well, I was always infantry. And some of them did find those sort of things.

For the moment, not so much talking about the left-wingers, but talking about the people who had come in, were a lot of people - had a lot of people been unemployed before they joined? That doesn't make a person unpatriotic.

No, it does not - you bet it doesn't. Well, you see, the worst of the depression was over, wasn't it? Now a chap who was - you probably ran across in my book John Joseph Aloysius McWiggen. Now he'd been a bagman. I mean, he'd tramped the roads. He was always looking for work; he always took work when he could get it. And then there were a number of fellows who weren't looking very hard for work. Some of them made very good soldiers. It's curious that.

You see, I think a lot of men haven't had an opportunity to do something they really believed in. And you implied what transformed us into a pretty motley collection from all over Australia. Because we had Queenslanders and all sorts; South Australians, Central Australians in our battalion who just happened to be in Melbourne when they enlisted. What turned them into a really efficient fighting battalion - and one of them was - they took it all terribly seriously. It was not exactly devotion to duty but they knew it was important, perhaps the most important thing they'd ever done, and everybody tried. You know, not only did they try to fire their machine-guns well or their rifles or that sort of thing but they took pride in their appearance on parade. And if they didn't, they didn't last very long. Of course, it was early days, we could be pretty choosey.

Well, then, there's something else that I have overlooked. To this point I've only talked about men in the ranks with no previous military - with no experience of war at any rate. But we've got to remember, well - take my own battalion - that all the officers of course had done considerable training. And then our colonel as second in command and every company sergeant major and the regimental sergeant major were all first war fellows. Now they .... There was a sprinkling of first war fellows in every platoon - or at least in every company. So, you know, in so far as we took it seriously, of course we talked to these people, we found out. They taught us a lot of the form.

(15.00) I remember one fellow was a particular friend of mine - I became a sergeant pretty soon - his name was Jimmy Simpson. He had a Military Medal from, oh, south of Somme or somewhere, and a pretty nasty wound from there too. But he taught me a great deal about how to behave in battles. And I said to him once, 'Jimmy, the only thing that worries me is, as sergeant, is that one will behave properly'. He said, 'With that attitude you're sure to'. He said, 'The people who don't are those who only think about themselves', and that was a thing worth knowing, wasn't it? His son, incidentally, was in the battalion too. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 9 of 32

Can you remember any other things that he was saying to you about battle?

Yes. He said, oh, a few days before Bardia - we used to always go and see each other - he said, 'Oh well, you'll be all right but whatever you do don't get thinking about if you get wounded or killed or anything like that'. He said, 'You've got to discipline that right out of your mind. You take every minute, every hour as it comes and you do the best you can then.' But he said a lot of good fellas worry themselves about the possible things that are going to happen to them.

And I became an absolute marvel at that. I never considered it - I don't think - ever again. And at the very moment you might get knocked down, think, you know, 'I won't get hit again', but .... You didn't waste time and it didn't decrease your fighting efficiency in any way at all. But with some, and good people, it became more than they could bear. As an officer - which I was after Bardia - I knew that because, you see, we used to have to censor the men's letters. And they would write in some of them, well - very moving letters. Most of them were proud to be where they were but odd ones - and that's one way you could pick them out, you know - they were too much worried; it was too much for them.

Thinking still about those early days, what sort of approach did the officers take to discipline? I mean, incredible strictness or perhaps being a bit lenient at the beginning? I mean, all the possible variations?

Well, incredible is not a suitable word anyway. But in our battalion, as I told you, our colonel had done well in the first war and he'd soldiered on between the wars. Now there were a lot like that.

Was he a civilian ...

Oh yes.

... who had kept up the CMF Militia?

Yes, yes. You know, he was probably a captain at the end of the war with a Military Cross. And he was good at it and he was pleased to go on with it and worked hard at it. Now his second in command was a fellow called Wrigley who also had a Military Cross. He was an ANZAC and he'd been wounded two or three times. He liked soldiering so much, he soldiered on in India after the war. But he realised he didn't have enough money really to support that so he came back to Australia but he kept on with the CMF. Well, you see, both of those men were virtually professionals, weren't they? And they'd never given it up since their extreme youth. They'd been on parade once or twice a week and encamped for a month at least every year. I don't mean continuously but what with weekends and bivouacs. So they were professional and, well, to take my two, they were exacting. They said there's no HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 10 of 32

nonsense about, we're going to be the smartest battalion in the division and we'll put up with no sloppiness of any kind at all: and they didn't. And they had very little trouble. I mean, there was very little, very few incidents of insubordination or impertinence or hitting anyone because to that extent, you see, we were disciplined by our previous ....

And, of course, for me it was easier because I'd done six years at a boarding school. And Geelong Grammar was a para-military organisation. See, all the masters we liked best were old digs - some of them with decorations. And we took our cadet training and shooting and all that sort of thing very seriously indeed. So that we had fly also .... Well, I don't know whether is relevant, it is very personal, but it's long you see, you had to have two cold showers a day. Now the food wasn't very good either. This amounts to a lot. You had to keep yourself clean; you're inspected for your clothing and general appearance; and you could eat anything and you weren't frightened of cold water. That was a very useful start for all of us.

(20.00) They sound like universal infantry skills or attributes.

Well, it really was. And you see, even when I first went there we did everything to the bugle and if you were addressed by a master, you stood to attention and shouted, 'Sir' (laughs).

So there was a period presumably of initial training which concentrated, what, on drill? I mean how quickly did it get into the specifics of tactics and weaponry and things like that?

Well, it took quite a while because, for a start, you see, people .... We weren't a full battalion for a start and there was no good fooling about until your platoons - which at battle strength number about forty - it was no good trying to do anything until you were about thirty. And your companies were something over 100. But quite .... You see, the day started with formality. You know, there was a bringing of every battalion paraded as a battalion, and then as a brigade and there were bands. I mean, there were bands from the ranks but it's surprising what other people can play something if they've got it and they liked it and they had special privileges.

And then after that, you know, you'd go to various things, stripping and assembling your machine-guns or mortars or perhaps to the rifle shooting range. Then an awful lot of drill and then a lot of just straight marching with increasing weight so that you got used to that. So it was a mixture of something all the time.

And then, finally, of course, you got to the stage where you did exercises and the artillery would fire rounds and so that you got used to that sort of noise. And then, you see, we were very lucky because we assembled about November-December, before Christmas in '39, but we didn't move up to the desert. You see, we went to the Middle East about March I think in '40. And then we had nearly a year there training just from a tented camp on the edge of the HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 11 of 32

desert. So, you know, there was nothing for us to do except become .... And also we had the great advantage of being - not mixed up with - but alongside British regular units. Now they were smart and good and experienced and we learnt .... And we were sent to their schools.

I was sent to a school as a sergeant in Cairo. One of my instructors was David Niven and, of course, he was a professional soldier you know, and a splendid instructor he was too. I mean, he'd laugh at you and, you know, he'd love to teach you, but it was all fun. And then we admired them. I remember the guards - they were Black Watch. Now they're about as smart as is possible to be and as rough as can be too. But we watched them changing the guard and we thought, 'By God, they're better than we are. We must get better than them.'

Yes. The characteristics that make Australian soldiers any different. I mean, first of all, do you think that there are significant differences, that there were significant differences between Australians and, say, the English? This is the reputation?

There is no doubt there were. I mean, let's start with the obvious physical difference. We were, we tended to be bigger, which is odd for me to say because I was perhaps the smallest chap in the platoon I commanded - but we could carry more weight, we could march longer, we could look after ourselves better. I mean, in that, you know, we could cook a bit or scrounge a bit, or pinch a bit or whatever's necessary. And then again a lot of fellows were from the country and their influence spread. And they had a good eye for country. You know, the best way to get there would be this way or that way. But the physical thing was important and the other thing was that, you see, we were - this is all fifty years ago - but we were almost all at only one remove from a rural life. Now that gives you more initiatives. More depends on your personal judgment, doesn't it, than working in a factory or on a road or in an office? And to that extent, I'm sure I don't exaggerate, when I say that there were more fellows in the AIF who would use their individual judgment than was the case in the British Army and, of course, I had experience with both.

(25.00) Yes I remember in describing the Normandy landings you talked about looking at the people you were about to go into the landing with and wondering how many of those men in the ranks were capable of becoming de facto NCOs and officers when the need arose as you knew it would arise.

Because with us it didn't matter you see. If you read accounts of Australian battles whether Bean or my father or in your notes you see it again and again that everyone in authority gets knocked down but there's always Private Smith or someone. He sees the opportunity, and he's got the judgment and the resolution to take it and doesn't care what happens to him. That was really the strength of the AIF I think, the number of fellas who were prepared to act in their own authority and even lead on no authority but their own strength of character and resolution. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 12 of 32

How do you combine that independence with the discipline that you also need to make a large organisation function when you need to co-ordinate the activities of a large number of people?

Well, that's just the job of leadership. And it takes .... Then again, I remember, yeah, of course I had to speak very frankly to my father on leave and that sort of thing. And I remember one time, we had a farm outside - forty or fifty miles from Melbourne. We went up there one day with an uncle of mine who'd been a very good infantry officer and we had lunch with Sir John Gellibrand - a sort of a picnic. And they were talking about this problem and .... Now I've lost myself a bit.

Well, the business of combining that independence that you've just praised with the ability to do as you're told.

Yes. And 'Gelli' said, 'Well, the thing is, of course, we've got to appoint, as your war cabinet has so sensibly done, Henry, and General Blamey, people who are accustomed to exercising authority in the first war and in the CMF later, and so presumably they're reasonably good at it. Well', he said, 'The next thing of course is picking out the natural leaders - fellows who exercised authority or can exercise authority without giving offence.' That is fairly important, isn't it.

END OF TAPE ONE - SIDE A

START OF TAPE ONE - SIDE B

Identification: This is side two, tape one. Mr Henry Gullett.

Sorry, you were saying - we were talking about the delicate business of authority without giving offence.

Yes. And that, of course, is something that shouting and bawling doesn't get you very far. But, on the other hand, to compare it, you see, in a British regular regiment you're given an order and it's going to be obeyed no matter what. Now, with us, it tended to be obeyed not so much because it was given but because we knew he was a pretty sensible chap and wouldn't .... You know, we'd confidence in General Blamey and Brigadier Savige and the colonels and the platoon - the company and platoon commanders. It was a matter of .... We thought they were the best men for the job. And as time went on, of course, increasingly they became the best men for the job. Because when I left 6th Battalion in 1944 to go to the British I was either the most senior major or the second most or third most and I'd served in the ranks and so had everybody else except the colonel and perhaps one or two others. So they were selected because of - of course this is after four or five years of war - but they were selected because of ability. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 13 of 32

Your book makes it clear that you had dealings with many, many very good officers.

Yes, I did.

But the situation of someone who, for whatever reason, wasn't a good officer, could you just talk about the process by which that sort of person was sorted out? Whether it's a matter of the gradual undermining of his position because people didn't take him seriously or ...

No ...

Before the actual order was given reposting him somewhere?

Well, I didn't mention that in the book because there were obviously a few like that. I didn't mention them because I wouldn't have wanted to hurt their families. But, without mentioning any names at all, the process wasn't very difficult. As a general rule they let things down rather badly through errors of judgment and - I mean in battle or in a withdrawal like Greece, that was a testing thing - and then it was quite simple. The colonel would say, 'Well, I think Major so-and-so, you'd better go back to the base and take this message from me, and he'd appoint someone else in command of his company.

And then when they got back to Palestine, as we called it then, there were plenty of jobs. I mean, they weren't bad people; they just weren't suitable infantry officers. And a lot of them had devoted years of training to become .... You know, they were entitled to our respect and by and large they had it. But they just, under pressure, they were not quite good enough, that's all. Everyone makes mistakes, even the best of the officers but .... And that was tolerated. But you may not make them because of lack of consideration as to what is going to happen to the man next door or the company next door.

What about the men? Who did they - I'm thinking of that traditional Australian spirit in relation to authority particularly when that respect isn't there - how did soldiers underneath such an officer react?

Well, you see, between them there'd be NCOs, there'd be others whose words - whose character as a soldier they did believe in. So it wasn't disastrous and there was certainly never anything overt about it - no abuse or anything of that sort.

So in other words the system had enough protective mechanisms in it to prevent disaster. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 14 of 32

Yes. And that's a good way of putting it and that is the truth, without any dramas. And I think in that we were probably very lucky again with General Blamey because he had got great experience - yet he wasn't entirely a professional soldier. But he knew he had to trust the people he put there, at least for the first battle campaign or two when they probably got a bit old, and, indeed, they all did. Either that or they were promoted or they were put in as, say, town major of Tobruk or some depot or other or leave hostels or, you know, there're all these necessary jobs that have got to be done.

(5.00) You mentioned that Blamey had a political side to him that made him suitable for the job. The politics of war - I mean, war can't be separated from politics ...

No, it can't; indeed it can't. No, what I meant by that was I think the war cabinets found .... Blamey knew enough about politics not to make outrageous demands on governments. You know, he knew that - well, we had to tolerate two armies for a while because for a long time Australians didn't like the thought of people being conscripted to serve abroad, did they? Well, all right, we accepted that and they were asked to volunteer and nearly all of them did. To that extent he was political. I don't mean he was Labor or Liberal. He didn't, as far as I'm aware - which wouldn't be very far. But I don't think Blamey had any preferences for Scullin or Menzies or ...

He certainly worked fairly effectively with Curtin, didn't he?

Certainly. I meant Curtin, not Scullin or Chifley. And, you see, we've got to remember too that in Curtin's government there were a number of splendid old soldiers: Reg Pollard, Jack Dedman - he'd been a regular commissioned out of the ranks and had a permanent commission. I liked Jack Dedman a lot, as I did Reg Pollard. And then there was another minister who was a South African war veteran in my time. Curtis - yes, Ben Curtis. Well, this isn't political but, by the way, when I first was a member of Parliament there were more members who were Boer War veterans than there were second war veterans. It's comic, isn't it.

The strategies in relation to the war, now, before we started talking you referred to Chris Master's program on Greece and Crete. Thinking back to that time, what was the sort of discussion that went on amongst soldiers about - I mean, there you are, you're seeing ...

Where? In the Western Desert?

In the Western Desert or ... HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 15 of 32

Well, we were at Tobruk when the decision was made to help the Greeks. You know, we were on the way back really and having conducted the first desert campaign in the 6th Division. And the New Zealanders and we were moved back to Alexandria. And then the furphies spread that we were going to Greece and then we weren't told anything about it. We were given a few days leave. And the next thing we were on the ships going to Greece. And the men, were on the whole, delighted. Soldiers are extremely uncritical of decisions made that affect them - even though it affects their lives. They've got .... Particularly in the 6th Division, we had confidence in General Blamey, as I've said, and Brigadier Savige, our colonels. It wasn't our job to worry about where the hell we were going, and we didn't.

There weren't, say, members of the equivalent of the barrack room lawyer who wanted to talk the strategy of the war; wanted to have doubts about what was happening?

Well, no. And I can answer that with certainty because, you see, on the sort of active service we were in in Greece I was by then an officer but I'd been in the ranks. I knew the fellas pretty well although we'd been very heavily reinforced 'cause we lost most of them at Bardia. But, you know, you ate the same food, you marched together, you dug holes together and you knew very well. And they didn't care what they said in front of you. So that we did know what they thought. And they got a bit depressed about Greece towards the end of it and particularly when we got back to Palestine. We began to think the whole damn thing had been a mistake. But then, you see, twenty and thirty years after, books were written - it showed that it was a very important diversion from the German and Russian point of view. Not that they .... And of course it is true that - in Greece the Germans - and Crete - the Germans lost more men than they had in all the European campaigns up to that point and they wore out a lot of tanks and tank tracks.

(10.00) And they didn't use paratroopers again ...

Never, no. And so that I think whether we can justify it strategically or not is really rather beyond the rank of a company commander to say.

I wasn't thinking so much of, you know ...

But the men didn't grizzle.

Well, taking another topic, and given that we are jumping all around and not following a chronological approach in this interview, but one of the things, certainly after the war, I can say with some confidence having interviewed a large number of people ...

Yes, I know. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 16 of 32

... is talking about New Guinea and the New Guinea campaigns. Now there are certainly a lot of people who have certainly felt since, a lot of soldiers who basically felt that a lot of those New Guinea battles weren't really necessary. You know, it's the old business of the Japanese have been cut off, they have lost their transport, they're stuck there. Why not just leave them alone and wait for the end of the war. Now, thinking of the end of the war were those ideas - and leaving aside whether they're right or wrong - were those ideas being discussed by soldiers at the time?

Well, you see, I wasn't there after 1943. And I left about September '43 - to the best of my knowledge - to contest a Federal election, which I didn't win fortunately. But at that time, well, we were thrashing the Japanese. There's no argument about it. Of course we were taking losses of good fellows that we always regretted. But in so far as we were on top of them and almost always advancing till we got to Salamaua, there was no criticism of it then. But after I left and they went a second time up there towards Aitape ...

The Wewak campaign?

Yeah, the Wewak, yeah. Well, ...

[inaudible]

... well, no. You must talk to David Hay because he commanded the battalion at Wewak and, of course, he was badly wounded there now. He'd be the one. See, I wasn't there so my views wouldn't .... I regretted it very much because so many good old soldiers got killed there as tends to happen.

It's the fellow who doesn't consider himself that does get knocked off. And, of course, when they're not the men .... I never served with the battalion under those conditions. In my time, you know, they were all quite impressed with the absolute necessity for winning every battle and engagement. All you had to do - and not often that - was direct them. And, well, infantry officers are there to get shot at - as General Godfrey said - and to give some sort of example.

You were in Europe for a lot of the time - that's most controversial in a sense - weren't you?

Well, I was there from D Day until about D Day plus twenty, I think, in Normandy and then I was wounded. Then I went back ...

You came back, yeah. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 17 of 32

... when they, we were already in Holland and it was obviously then we were going to win the war. But I will tell you - I don't know whether this is of interest to you in this or not - but as a very experienced infantry officer I thought that D Day was brilliantly organised, everything about it, deception, the lot. But I thought that for the week after it was a pretty dicey 'how do you do', and the Germans were as good as anyone there. And, remember, they were falling back on their own lines. They had no shortage of food, ammunition, everything, and we were carrying ours. And also they were good, especially those damned SS; they were not very nice people but they were proper soldiers.

Back in Australia, you were - I know that you were training .... You went back briefly to the second section and then you got pulled out again and put into more training. But ...

No, I was sent to staff college.

Sorry, staff college. Yeah, that's what I meant in a general sense. But were people talking at all - this question about whether or not the campaigns at the end of the war were necessary - were soldiers talking about that sort of thing? Or did senior officers suppress that sort of discussion?

(15.00) Senior officers can't suppress much in fact, you know, in reality, in the way of discussion - not even in the officers' mess. And they shouldn't have to try, and with us I don't think they ever did have to try. But, you see, at the staff college, which was where I spent the last three months of the war, they were all experienced and ambitious officers with the minimum rank of captain or major. Now they are not the sort of fellas - and they are ambitious most of them too - they are not the sort of people who are going to criticise things. Though, in fact, we had very open discussions and even debates as to is it a good thing to do this or a bad thing? But like most ...

You had debates. There must have been someone who took the contrary side.

Yes. But no-one took .... Well, it was a military exercise really to, you know, to make you appreciate what forces were. What did we have? What have they got? What's the objective? And, David Hay could answer your question really because, see, I wasn't .... The battalion I am sure was never in the least demoralised but - or that entire formation of the brigade or the division. But I think from what I've heard there was a feeling that it was a little bit pointless. But he could tell you.

The newspaper coverage, press reports, there were quite a few battles between newspapers and governments during the war. A soldier's perspective on the sort of newspaper coverage of the war, how did you feel? HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 18 of 32

Well, you see, I would be atypical because I knew most of the reporters, or a lot of them anyway.

You were in a position to realise that both sides though why they ...

And they would tend to come to me or ask me next time I was on leave to have lunch or dinner or they'd pick me up and take me to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Brussels or somewhere like that. So I did see both sides but I never .... I amused [?] no more with personal things. You know, I didn't know anything about the grand strategy and I never pretended to. But what the Scottish soldiers thought about it or what the north country miners thought about it, now that I could say and that interested them.

Was there a feeling on the part of some officers who perhaps didn't have your sophisticated understanding of the process that effectively the press were hindering the war?

I don't think there was. At least I had .... See, it was very different in the Australian Army than the British because in the Australian Army the officers were the same sort of people as the soldiers only they were rather better at it - perhaps a bit better educated too in many cases. Though, there were a lot of men who did not want to be officers you know, because Dad hadn't been one or something like that. But, at any rate, the difference when I got to the British Army was this: that the officers were then very much of a class. I mean, for a start, they were taller - considerably. Better built fellas. More - better at games, they always fielded very good games in football and cricket. Because miners don't have much time for games and they were very small chaps although they were 'John Bull' at heart'. But, at any rate, those officers, you see, being from a privileged class rather tended to look down on the media anyway.

Well, the other thing was we didn't get many newspapers. In the Australian Army we had rather a good news service I always thought that did its - you know, these sheets would come up to our place ...

Giving [inaudible]

Yeah, these sort of things. And there was another one I think as well. And an intelligent effort was made to give the people the overall picture. That was not nearly as well done in the British Army and the officers .... The men tended to regard it with cynicism and ...

(20.00) In the British Army or the Australian Army? HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 19 of 32

In the British Army. And the officers, of course, were all 'what can you expect from these bloody [inaudible], old boy?' sort of thing. But that was a very strong reality, the difference in class. And, of course, it was based on realism too. The educated classes were generally the best officers. It had some rather bad effects. I mean, when I did this school and David Niven was the instructor, I made friends with - and they were mostly Brits or New Zealanders - and I made friends with a number of Brits who'd been soldiering. They weren't much older than I but they'd been soldiering since they were boys and they were regulars. And, 'Gordon' I said to one one day - he was a sergeant, a platoon sergeant major, it was a non-commissioned rank to command a platoon - and I said to one of them one day, 'Well' - towards the end of it - and I said, 'Well, I hope I see you again' and he said, 'Yes, I hope so too'. And I said, 'By that time we'll probably all be generals!'. He said, 'You might be but I won't', he said, 'Because', he said, 'you see, I'm not a bloody gentleman'. Now it was a pity, he had a great capacity for - I would have thought - and I don't mean to say a field marshal, but at least to command a battalion. But he never .... He thought it was quite outside his range of ambition. And that is a waste, that's all, militarily. I mean the Germans didn't make those mistakes.

But while the comparison between Australians and the English is interesting, on another level, and that is to quite a degree, they suspended party politics during the war. They had a national government. I don't think they actually had an election during the war. But we didn't do that, and - as you know, very well from a personal point of view. Could we talk the continuation of politics during the war? First of all, what was your feeling about the proposals for a national government? Just starting back at the beginning there.

Look, my thoughts about a national government in Australia?

Well, Menzies was pushing it very hard in 1940.

Well, you know my father was a member of the government in 1940 until he was killed in this air smash here. And I remember him writing to me about an incident saying, 'I consider Menzies is leading the country with an industry and an ability that no-one could rival'. Well, you ask my personal views, I accepted that so I thought, 'Oh well, whatever Menzies does will be all right'. And yet, on the other hand, you see ...

Earle Page, do you remember the attack by Earle Page? A vicious attack ...

No I don't really.

... that he made on Menzies at the beginning of the war. But did you think that .... Okay, you thought that Menzies was the best person to be Prime Minister but did you think that the Labor Party should continue to be the Opposition, which was what they wanted to do, or do you think they should have joined HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 20 of 32

Menzies, as he suggested and formed a national coalition as had happened in Britain?

Well, Menzies, of course, was very apt to follow what happened in Britain.

He also had a very fragile coalition which would have ...

That is another thing and some of the [inaudible] men were Country Party men too. But I have no really worthwhile thoughts on that.

You didn't think it was a bad thing that party politics continued?

No. You see, I, less than others because having been brought up in a political sphere and my father having many friends on either side of the House - I didn't for a moment think they were bad or incompetent people and I still don't. Now, that I think would not have been shared by most of our officers. But, on the other hand, the men would have been, to say the least, indifferent or evenly divided I would have thought.

You didn't feel at the time that leaving aside people who were anti the war effort, that there was a dissipation of effort involved?

(25.00) No, I didn't, no. It's extraordinary how, you know, if you're a soldier .... See it was a long war - six years - and it was .... We began to accept our units as home, and that as life and all the life we were likely to see. So interest in what went on outside - and even though those decisions concerned us very closely - we didn't waste much time about them.

Did you think elections, for example the '43 election that you were involved in, did you think that they actually .... One of the rationales that is put forward for elections is that they are a way of involving the public, making the public think about things. As well as the normal thing of changing the leaders perhaps, or reaffirming support for the leader - for leaders and parliamentarians - they are a way of making a society consciously work out what it wants, and combine together or move in a direction that suits it. Do you think it served that sort of function?

Well, yes I do, as a matter of fact. And I think much more so then than is the case now because - well, clearly, I've been mixed up with politics as an observer of my father or myself for a very long time and more people were .... See, more people used to go to political meetings right from the start. Then there was not only the UAP or the Liberal Party holding meetings and the Labor Party of course but there was the Australian Women's National League - a very powerful organisation. The Australian Natives Association, the Lodges - all HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 21 of 32

very patriotic, 'fear God honour the Queen' sort of organisations. And when those people met they tended to talk about politics to an extent that, to my certain knowledge, they don't do any more. I mean, you might up here at the Journalists' Club, but I don't believe they do at the Commonwealth Club or the Canberra Club or the Working Man's Club [sic] or the pubs in Queanbeyan, in fact, I know they do not. So that, at any rate, to answer your question: do I think it was a time of testing public opinion effectively? Yes I do. And it came down strongly in favour of continuing the status quo, didn't it.

The Militia Bill, we mentioned before the way in which Blamey was .... Actually I will just change the tape because it is near the end.

END OF TAPE ONE - SIDE B

START OF TAPE TWO - SIDE A

Identification: This is tape two, side one of the interview with Mr Henry Gullett. End of identification.

Right. The Militia Bill. We referred .... Earlier in the interview you referred to the way in which Blamey was a person who was able to, for example, and this is the example you gave - recognise that politically Australia needed to start the war for a while with two armies: one that could go away and one that couldn't go very far. But the Militia Bill in 1943 was when Curtin of course didn't change it completely but modified the definition of where the so-called Militia could go.

Yes.

Now, the political processes that were involved in achieving that change, you were in a position to perhaps observe those with a much more informed eye than most members of the army and the officer corps. What did you think of that particular experience?

Well, again, I'm afraid, you see, in those .... In that year - what is it, 1943 - I was from before Christmas .... From the end of '42 to towards the end of '43 we were in New Guinea and I was only a company commander but still it was a company commander's war. And honestly, I used to carry books around and General Sir John Gellibrand used to select them for my mother to send me. And, you know, and they were a great pleasure to me. But you didn't have much time. You see you got no daily papers. It wasn't a matter of 'Mr Curtin said yesterday' or 'Sir Robert or Mr Menzies said something else'. All you really were interested in was how long's it going to take us to get to Ioribaiwa Ridge and how many chaps are there and I wonder how Sergeant Gibson's getting on because he's such a good man in these HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 22 of 32

situations. So that my thoughts on it were really not worth having. We of course .... We had very close relationship with the 9th Division. We didn't know the 7th and 8th so well and therefore, of course, we thought there was no-one like ourselves and the 9th.

There was quite a bit of ill-feeling between some members of the AIF and the Militia, wasn't there?

And .... Yes, I'm glad you've said that because that brings me back to where I was heading. Until Milne Bay we'd looked down on the Militia very much and we didn't want any part of them and were frankly rude to them too. I mean, not whenever possible but a lot of the men, you know, if they had a drink and they found them in pub, they would be offensive. But that entirely altered when they held Milne Bay. We were sent to Milne Bay to reinforce them but, in fact, they'd already won the whole business by the time we'd got there and we just helped them tidy up a bit, that's all. They did the work. But that totally altered our attitude because we could see that no matter what their terms of enlistment were that their one desire was to be soldiers. And so that altered our opinion. And those who served with them, you know, crossing the range to - from Moresby to - outside Moresby to over the Kokoda to Sanananda and Buna and those places, well, they had a very good opinion of them too. It's .... It would be foolish to say that they were as military knowledgeable or as severe as we were because they hadn't had that sort of experience that makes them so. And, again, some of them came and reinforced us in Wau and they were good chaps.

But it was obvious that a lot of their officers, frankly, were a bit old for that game. You know, their hearts were in the right place but quite a lot of them were first war fellas. Well, you see, we got rid of all ours except an odd, very strong fella. And they were not up to these exhausting marches and heavy loads and dreadful tracks and mud. But nevertheless we recognised their heart was in the place and they could be totally relied upon - which was an absolute change of attitude.

(5.00) What did you think of Curtin as a war leader?

Well, I would like to preface that by saying I was very much in favour of John Curtin because my father liked him and respected him. And, then again, as I told you, I was wounded in Normandy but it took me a month or two to get better - and another Australian was wounded at the same time. And we thought the night before we were going back to Brussels we'd do ourselves rather well. So we went and dined at the Savoy. And while we were there a nice, grey headed, young fellow came over and he said, 'Mr Curtin, the Australian Prime Minister, is sitting over there and he recognised your uniforms and he'd like you to join him'.

So we went over and he bought us a drink and he asked our names and he said, 'Are you anything to do with Sir Henry?', and I said, 'Oh yes, he's my father, sir'. 'Oh', he said, 'and you stood for parliament last time?'. I said, 'Yes, sir, and I'm very glad I didn't win or I would have missed the invasion'. And he said, 'Well, I'm going back in a week or so and I shall give HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 23 of 32

your mother a ring and tell her I have seen you and you look splendid. And he did that. Now that is pretty nice for a prime minister to find time to do a little thing like that for someone who was never other than a political opponent. So, you see, I'm personally prejudiced very much in favour of Mr Curtin. Of course, he was not in the parliament in my time. The leader then was Ben Chifley and I liked him very much too, and respected him enormously, and he was a very attractive human being too.

But from what you saw of Australia and, as you've said, you were in New Guinea for a lot of this time .... I mean, did you feel that that reputation that Curtin has as a person who is effectively able to, perhaps more than any other prime minister I can think of .... He has this reputation of rise above the party political scene and assume the status of a national leader at a time of crisis?

I don't think there's any doubt at all. He assumed the status of a national leader. How right he was, you know, to insist on the return of Australian divisions from the Middle East. I think he was right because I don't think .... See, the Americans weren't very good when they arrived and I think - not that it would have been a dreadful disaster I suppose if they had taken Moresby, but they might have nevertheless without the 6th and 7th Divisions, but, at any rate, we never queried; there was certainly no query in there among the boys, among the soldiers. He was the national leader.

We have referred in various ways to the relationships that existed between Australians and the British and their armed forces in different ways and you naturally touch on it quite often in your book, and you've made a number of comparisons between the two armies. Effectively, I mean, did you have a feeling at the time remembering, perhaps, you know, when you went back there into that area for the Normandy landing. Yet people tend to think of the fall of Singapore as being an important psychological moment in their relationship between Australia and Britain. I mean, what did you feel about that when you went there later in the war?

Well, .... When I went where, later in the war?

Well, to Britain. I mean, you'd been in the Middle East and not Britain.

You see, we were at Ceylon when Burma and Malaya were overrun and, come to that, the Philippines. And, well, I suppose we had the certain soldierly arrogance and a very good opinion of ourselves. We thought it was absolutely disgraceful, to be honest with you. Frankly I think we were probably right. The more you read about it the more it would appear that that was a very ill-conducted defence. Not Burma, because they had some good fellas there and were greatly outnumbered and they didn't, at any rate, pack up altogether. But, but it qualifies our criticism of the British who were in command because the Americans were overrun just as quickly, for all their years of preparedness and unlimited capacity to reinforce HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 24 of 32

the place, of course, and defend it, but they made a nice muck of it, didn't they? Or, that's what we thought. We were contemptuous of it. So that, that's not an informed view, it's just a local soldier's view.

(10.00) Was there a development through the course of the war away from perhaps that colonial status that you might have started the war with, to much more 'Australia's a place that's got to stand by itself, it's got to protect itself'. You mentioned Blamey - one of the characteristics of Blamey was that he would stand up to the English.

Yes.

Now, in a sense, what I am asking about is whether this sort of attitude extended through the war and developed more and affected officers, so that perhaps you were feeling at the end of the war, in relationship to English officers you met, perhaps in a slightly different way to the way you felt at the beginning or ...

Well, no, honestly. But then, see, you asked me my own opinions and I would be atypical because after all I was three years at Oxford and in that time I was a member of the Reserve in the British Army. I didn't bother to take a permanent commission or anything. I really only did it because I joined the horse cavalry because I'm a horseman and there's one way I could get a lot of cheap horses. But, as I say, I'm atypical but I've felt just as home with the British, my sort of chap at Oxford, and I felt just as at home with the British Army but not with the other ranks - not with the men so much.

Curiously enough I felt much more at home with the Scots because the Scots are a bit classless in their military hierarchy. I mean this: that everybody in the regiment I was with, the Royal Scotsmen, nearly everybody spoke with a Scottish accent. Now, if we had any sort of formal night - they had a lot of Scottish nonsense, you know, about the pipers and one thing and another, and they sing Scottish songs and they'd dance the dances - it was .... That was the overriding thing rather than, 'Oh, splendid chap. I was at Haileybury with him you know', which ....

I was perfectly happy with the Brits but it took me a while to get to know the soldiers. And, of course, I was only with them a day before we landed in Normandy and then the day after that I was commanding one of the companies because we lost three company commanders on D Day. But they tolerated me I soon found out. I mean, they noticed it and slightly resented it that I spoke just like the other officers. And I could speak frankly pretty well anyway I like. But they did recognise that I knew my business. And, you know - going around at night when they don't always see you, just to see that they're all right and everybody's awake and where you ought to be - I'd often hear them commenting on that. And .... You can't censor this thing, can you? HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 25 of 32

We could certainly have sections defined as not being for public release.

Well, I was going around with the Green Howards one night - the regiment - battalion I landed with. And I heard a fellow say to another chap, 'And Jack, what's this new Australian major? What sort of a man is he?' And the other fellow said, 'Oh, he's just another fucking gentleman, George, but he does know his business'. (Laughs). I thought that extremely amusing and it showed a .... They didn't resent the gentleman which I thought was a little .... Which I think we would have. But then we didn't have to.

Decorations. The policy that the different armies had on decorations has been a very sore point with lots of people and referring to another aspect of your career I'm remembering that there's been .... There was at one stage quite a controversy within the War Memorial about a thing called VC's Corner and there was some feeling on the part of Bean, and I think others, that .... And it's there on the Roll of Honour, you don't see people's decorations. Have I got it right?

Yes, you have.

(15.00) There's a different attitude suggested in that than perhaps some of the nations have. Or is it just Bean?

Well, no, it wasn't just Bean. You see, he was perhaps my father's greatest friend and he was always referred in this family as 'Charlie old Bean' and we were all very fond of him. But he and my father, who was the first director of the War Memorial, held the view very strongly that it was a memorial not a museum. And I remember my father saying at some speech, he said, 'Well, in this country we have no Arc de Triomphe, no Red Fort, no Westminster Abbey, no battle flags; we've got the War Memorial and that's about all that's visible about our history. It is a memorial where people should be remembered regardless of rank, decorations or any other consideration at all - except, of course, when you come to the pictures and the dioramas, then you want to show .... You know, if you're going to show dramatic actions, you've got to show those who are in them and those who lead it and .... But ...

But there's also a suggestion that many people did brave things, that because there wasn't an officer there to write it up they didn't get the appropriate recognition.

Well, there's more than a suggestion, there was a certain knowledge. I mean, in my own platoon at Bardia - except for the three Bren gunners that we left out of battle - everybody was killed or wounded and one chap got a mention in dispatches. Now, that was inadequate but then the only people who could have recommended him were all in hospital or dead. See, we lost all our officers and so I think it's just bad luck. But I think, well, I'm sure, that the British HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 26 of 32

had a much more generous scale of decorations in the Western Desert than we did and I think in Greece too. But, there again, I only think.

When we got back to Australia it was much better because it all went through our own systems. And, of course, too much of it depended on - I don't know how important this is, but - on the attitudes of commanders. See, we had a very good commander, Colonel Wood, and he'd - I was acting adjutant for a while occasionally - and he'd say, 'Well, we've got these recommendations from the company commanders for outstanding feats of arms'. But he said, 'Now, let's take a chap like Sergeant so-and-so or Corporal this-and-that,' he said, 'he's seen a lot of service and he's been distinguished in everything he's done. I think we ought to take into account people who have done nothing dramatic under the eye of an officer but they've just been bloody good soldiers for a long time'. Now that was an intended way of looking at it I thought and he did look at it like that. But it wasn't - it wasn't universal. And then again, some officers were opposed to it which, to my thought, extremely unfair on their men.

Opposed to it on what? The sort of grounds we have been talking about?

Well, they just felt that they couldn't see the point of singling out one person. I had a talk with Tom Derek - I met him at a staging camp in Cairns when I was going to the Brits - and we got on and we went out to dinner together rather than having dinner in the mess. We spoke very frankly and he said to me, 'Perhaps you're lucky going to the Brits'. And I said, 'Why Tom?'. 'Well', he said, 'you've got a reputation', and he said, 'I know what that's like', he said, 'when things are going badly'. I said, 'I know what you mean, it's a case of where's Tom Derek? He'll fix it up. Isn't it?' 'Oh well', he said, 'not always'. But he said, 'At any rate the Brits would only expect you to do your duty'. And we liked each other a lot. He said to me, 'Are you married?', and I said, 'No, but you are, aren't you?'. He said, 'Yes, that's another thing'. But that's exactly how he got killed you know. His platoon was held up in Tarakan and, 'Where's Tom Derek?'. Well, Tom was there with his rifle and grenades as usually and bombed them out of it but he got hit too badly that time.

(20.00) What do you mean, 'The English will only expect you to do your duty'?

Well, he meant they didn't know me. They always thought I was a professional soldier anyway.

So he was saying that because you were regarded as a good soldier in the Australian Army, a can-fix-it type person, is a good time to get out?

That's right. That was a damned dangerous thing to be.

Yes. I had an uncle once who said there was always a problem when you had an officer with a good reputation like that. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 27 of 32

Yes. They're apt to cause, not only to risk their own lives but everybody else's to keep their reputation up.

And were given the hard jobs.

Yeah, well, they'd get the hard jobs.

Experiences in battle: one of the comments that I remember Hank Nelson making, that, he said, in some research that he'd come across - he'd come across a suggestion that even when you're dealing with very experienced troops and there's no suggestion of people acting in a cowardly way or anything like that - he said it's actually quite a common thing for soldiers to go right through an action and not fire their weapons. Now, for someone who's never been in a war, that seems an extraordinary thing. Does that fit with your experience?

Well, it certainly doesn't fit with my experience of the Australian Army. I've always been a very keen small arms man and I used to make my soldiers practice even, you know, if they were at rest. Well, an unloaded - I mean, nowhere near the enemy. If a bird flew over we'll have a shot at that and then sight it up and see how close you were to it. I tried to make them better all the time because, see, rifles are very important in New Guinea. I mean, half the time .... Well, a lot of the time you were within fifty yards of each other and yet people would miss - miss the enemy. I mean, we were better than the Japanese by far but they were bloody terrible shots except for their snipers and they were rather good. And the British I think would probably have been pretty bad. In fact, I know they were because I only had one close engagement where everybody was in the open and they fired off an awful lot of rounds and didn't knock down enough people, I thought.

Did you find that situation of, say, ...

Not with the Australians, certainly not. No. You see ...

... I don't know, going along in a dream or ...

... Well, you see, a company commander in the sort of fighting in Normandy was not normally terribly close to his soldiers - that would be the platoon commander - he'd probably be in about the middle, behind the forward lot and was able to say what he wanted the rest to do. Well, that's his proper position anyway. So I've no experience with that, but I could well believe it and someone might just, well, not fire as fire anyway. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 28 of 32

One of the things that you referred in the discussions of your experiences in Normandy is discovering that you had different feelings about shooting Germans to shooting Japanese.

Yes, that, very definitely. Well, you see, our first engagement was against the Italians. Now, they haven't got a very good reputation as fighting men but we were up against some bersaglieri, and they're good. And not only did they defend that place very strongly and take - of course, they killed or wounded all of us. But when we left those of us who were still able to walk or be carried they looked after our wounded wonderfully well and we never forgot that. And so, now, the Germans - I didn't have much experience with the Germans because that was mainly at Tobruk with the 9th Divi. But they didn't look - they looked after each other tolerably well and they respected each other. Of course, part of this was the Germans knew bloody well we had a lot of German prisoners of war and were apt to have more. But I tended to think that, that the Germans were fairly humane people.

But when we got to New Guinea it was apparent that not only - the Japanese will, wouldn't chuck it in ever, hardly ever - but it was apparent that they enjoyed hurting people. I mean, they did awful things to some of the villagers they captured for no reason at all. And, if this were going to be public I wouldn't say this, but, I mean, we never lost any wounded; we never left wounded men no matter if it cost us three or four to get them out. But, you know, they'd chop up your wounded and - not your wounded but your dead, in the most disgusting manner and we thought that they even fed them to their dogs. So, we regarded them as less than human, frankly. And whereas, as I said, you might let a German run away but you'd never let a Japanese. We .... Oh, we didn't even trust their wounded because - well, that's bravery I suppose - they'd fire at us, so wounded or not we'd shoot them.

(25.00) The desert and the mountains, thinking of the Middle East and the desert and in Greece, compared to the jungle warfare - for you what were the main differences?

Well, the main difference of course for my company was the proximity of it. You see, we never .... Only fired about two shots in Greece myself and my platoon wouldn't have fired many hundreds. My company - no platoon it was. And they were always a long way away but their aircraft .... And, also, see I only had one man wounded there. Whereas, in New Guinea and the desert it was .... Well, in New Guinea certainly, at one time or another, you know, you used hand grenades and even your bayonet. I personally didn't and I'd sooner ... They weren't very strong, the Japanese soldiers, and you could - well, we are relatively - and, you know, you could bang it out of their hands and knock them down with the butt or something. I don't particularly like the thought of sticking bayonets into people, though some men don't mind. I'd prefer to knock 'em down and shoot them, personally.

The impact of the war on your attitudes to life - it's six years of very intense experience. HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 29 of 32

Yes it is. Well, it meant this of course, and responsibilities. I mean, not great responsibilities but the responsibility even for twenty men or thirty men or 120 or 130 or perhaps two companies, that is a big responsibility. And so it didn't seem to me that anything was - approached that in importance after, including being a Member of Parliament. I remember Bill Falkinder, the famous pathfinder - navigator - who did over 100 air operations over Europe, which is a hell of a lot - all before he was twenty-one too, by the way. Well, it certainly affected him because he put so much in it that I don't think anything ever looked important to him after - not anything. It didn't affect me to that extent. I thought some things were important but it was - it did - it did ....

And I had a letter the other day from an old friend who commanded a regiment in our brigade. And, well, he .... Then he came up here. He's worried about the young and he said, 'Of course, I think a lot of that is our fault, Jo'. He said, 'You see, we were so absorbed with the war and the battalion, the regiment, just absorbed our entire loyalties, that when we got back we didn't .... We soldiered on'. Which I did myself for four or five years and so did he. He said, 'I don't think we really paid enough attention to our children'. He said ...

END OF TAPE TWO - SIDE A

START OF TAPE TWO - SIDE B

Identification: Side two, tape two. Interview with Henry Gullett.

Sorry, that phrase that you just added that I didn't get recorded about jobs.

Well, you know, nothing seemed really to have been really so important to you as soldiering was. Well, there's another thing, of course, you see, you had no-one to suit for you, to please but yourself for about six years and that wasn't altogether good for you either. I mean, well, most of the men's messes were dry until after Greece and then we had beer in the men's messes and that was fairly sensibly controlled. It was less well controlled in some of the officers' and sergeants' messes where, you know, no question about [inaudible] or New Guinea or anything or anywhere like that, you got absolutely nothing. But people tended to drink too much every night. I don't mean they were rolling round or couldn't find their way home to bed or anything like that but - and that was a habit that was hard to break too.

Positive things: can you - from that war experience?

Well, let's see. Well, the thing is that so many of us.... I was talking to a chap the other day, a Jack Daniels - whom I'm going to recommend he get a DCMM which is about the nicest collection you can have in my idea - and he said .... He's been a very successful soldier settler. He went and brought up a splendid family and that sort of thing and we are very good friends. He said, 'Well, of course to me the only thing really worth doing in life was being HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 30 of 32

with the battalion', and that's extraordinary, isn't it. He said, 'There I was asked to do so much and no-one's made those sort of demands on me - no-one or nothing ever since'. A model chap and citizen.

I think it probably made us a bit racist you know. Well, I can't see how anyone in his senses is anything else. What does it mean? According to the dictionary: those who discriminate on grounds of race, colour or religion. I think they're the only things worth discriminating on. And I'm quite open about it. I don't mind being called a racist at all; of course I'm one.

But then, you see, this was heightened by the fact that you knew, well, for certain we could rely on each other and each other's battalions and regiments. And then we could rely on the Scots; we could rely on the Guards; and, curiously enough, a lot of those north country people - very, well, why not? They've had to defend that damn place since the Danes, haven't they? And, then the Japanese we considered not very intelligent. But very determined, dangerous soldiers. The Italians were by and large intelligent but, well, not consistently brave except, let's remember, their merchant marine and their fleet. See, they took terrible casualties to the British, and yet no Italian ship, merchant or otherwise, ever put to sea without a crew and I think that's because it relied on fishermen, so they had to be good people.

(5.00) They fought against the Germans in the end of the war quite well.

You bet they did, yeah. And then the Greeks we liked very much and the Cretans of course we respected because they're quite different there. They're savage. Very good looking, both sexes and tallish - arrogant sort of people. And the Greeks did their duty and did it well and cheerfully but, of course, their whole method of war was quite out of date. I mean, well, when we got there we were camped with one of their brigades just outside Athens - beautiful place we all loved, and especially after the desert, you know. But their officers were still riding horses. Now, we'd given that up when we left Australia. As a matter of fact it wasn't as silly as it looked because the horse of course is useful for more than carrying horses [sic]. And you can get up a hill at a pinch very quickly on a horse, can't you, and you can carry your wounded or a wounded man up too. But, still, in all, their communications, their radio, their signals, their gunnery control, well, one doesn't want to be rude about it but it was inadequate to me. To think the Germans were going to put up ....

Well ...

Well, as I said before, the Germans and the 9th Division behaved pretty well to each other. I mean, great severity but that's war. And I have found the same sort of thing in Normandy. Last time I was wounded with the Royal Scots I got carried out and put in an ambulance and taken to a casualty clearing station. There was a fellow next to me with no clothes on at all and a number of wounds. And he'd turned out to have been the sergeant major - German sergeant major - who was manning the platoon we were attacking, you see. I said to him, 'Are you a Royal Scot?' He said in German which I can speak, he said, 'No, I'm German. And I HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 31 of 32

don't know why I'm here'. But he said, 'All my clothes were blown off and I suppose I was carried in like that'.

And then - I would never part with my tunic, you see, because I had my Australias on it and my ribbons and one thing and another, and having no identity in the British Army I thought you've got to have something of your own - and he said, 'Oh, you were commanding a company that attacked us'. I said, 'That's right'. He said, 'I tried very hard for you Herr Major', he said, 'I thought if I could knock down the man with the ribbons the others might stop too'.

I said, 'Thank you very much', and then I said, 'Aren't you a bit old for this sort of thing?'. He said, 'Yes', he said, 'I have an Iron Cross from the first war', which he produced out of his blankets. He said, 'I have one son who was killed with Rommel in the desert and another one who's prisoner with the Russians'. He said, 'My third boy at the moment is at home. He's in the army but he's in a sort of reserve'. And I said, 'Well', again, 'aren't you a bit old for this sort of thing?'. He said, 'Look, I've got three sons at war and I understand it', he said. 'What can I do? - only fight for the fatherland, and', he said, 'particularly now. God knows what's going to happen because we can't have a war on two fronts'. I said, 'Well, perhaps you should have thought of that a little bit earlier in the day'. At any rate we parted on good terms and I told the sisters he was all right and I've often wondered what happened to him. But, you see, that was a human contact immediately. He was a cabinet maker by trade. So that ....

(10.00) You see, the only time I ever had a Japanese prisoner, we were told, ordered to get one, and I sent out a patrol. And we thought about it a lot and they did ambush a few including an officer. Well, they tied the officer on a stretcher because he wouldn't walk of course, and gave him to the New Guinea boys to carry you see. And they, of course, had been beaten up and worse in their village by the Japanese and they put him on an ant bed. Well, by the time he got to me he was in the most dreadful torment - ants all over him.

And I said - I had a 2IC, a Captain Price with me - and I said, 'Oh, Ernie, tell the boys to cut him loose and let him get rid of these ants'. So he did that. Then he stood up, and he was surprisingly big for a Japanese - I mean, about as big as me - and quite a strong fellow. Without any fooling around he grabbed this Ernie Price and tried to bite him in the neck, you see. But he made a mistake because Price was half-back for South Melbourne and he gave him a knee where it did him the most good and then a right hand and put him on his back. And he was rather a religious chap, Ernie, and a very nice fellow and he said, 'Now, now' he says, 'you're the sort of man that gives the Japanese a bad name'. Well, you see, that was a sort of a difference between them, wasn't it? And he never did get to where he was supposed to get of course. But, no, we had American interpreters who were - not with me but further back - who could interrogate them.

And the Italians, as I say, they were just pleasant and I don't think most of them wanted to go to war anyway. They were beautifully looked after. I mean, you know, they had lovely food and their tinned stuff really was delicious and, of course, bloody great flagons of Chianti all HENRY ('JO') GULLETT 32 of 32

over the place. I mean, bloody great flagons and things like that which .... But there was no ill-feeling much. And, you see, that .... The commander at Bardia whom - when we finally took it two days later - he had a British Military Cross from the first war. And, you know, the two old colonels congratulated each other on the splendid performance they'd put up. But it was like that, you see.

Mr Gullett, thank you very much.

Yes, good.

END OF TAPE TWO - SIDE B - END OF INTERVIEW