TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL HISTORY RECORDING

Accession number S00564

Title (WR/7) Wright, Daphne Mary (Petty Officer Telegraphist)

Interviewer Thompson, Ruth

Place made Chatswood NSW

Date made 5 April 1989

Description Daphne Wright, Petty Officer WRANS, interviewed by Dr Ruth Thompson for the Keith Murdoch Sound Archives of Australian in the War of 1939-45

Discussing pre-war employment; work with the Women's Emergency Signalling Corp; training Air Force recruits in morse code; formation of WRANS; joining the WRANS; posting to HMAS Harman; training as wireless operator; leisure.

DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 2 of 16

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Australian War Memorial GPO Box 345 CANBERRA ACT 2601 DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 3 of 16

Identification: This is Ruth Thompson recording an interview with Mrs Daphne Wright on 5th April 1989 and we're sitting in the sunroom at her home. I wonder, Mrs Wright, if you could first tell me a little bit about your family background; where you were born, when you were born and so on?

Ah, well, I was actually born in Chatswood - not very far from this street we were living - and I was the third child of my parents. ... There was about fourteen or fifteen years between my brother and I and then about sixteen or seventeen years between my sister. So, I grew up more like an only child because they were well and truly grown up by the time I got to my teenage years. So then I attended the convent school at Chatswood and after that I went to St Patrick's College in the city, at the age of about thirteen I went there, and continued on till I was sixteen. Did my Intermediate and after that I ... the nuns were very good, I loved my period I spent at St Patrick's. And then at the age of sixteen and a half, I think, I finally - I did a bit of temporary work for a while which I didn't ... which I thought was good to find out where I wanted to be.

I had quite a leaning towards writing and ... so I eventually was sent to a position at Universal International Pictures, the ... In those days all the big picture companies had their own exchanges here in the city. Universal had an enormously big one down in Kent Street. So the then assistant - it was a woman - to the publicity director had also been a graduate of St Patrick's. So when she wanted somebody else in the office I was lucky enough to be ... to get the position. So I then became, more or less, her secretary and the publicity director's secretary. I loved this work; it was very, very fascinating and interesting. A wonderful company to work for, Universal Pictures, and ... so I stayed there and enjoyed it and through them I got to know quite a lot of the young people that were in independent acting and things like that. I was only seventeen at the time then. And one of the young men that came from what was then called 'The Film Weekly' who did all the work for the distributing com[panies] like Hoyts and everybody like that, they did all the distributing information. He used to come into our office a lot and he belonged to what was known as the Independent Theatre Group which is a very old and famous one and I forget the name of the woman but she was the head of it for many, many years, and he belonged to that, and he was so enthusiastic about play acting and that that he, with a few other friends, formed another group and persuaded me to join it. Well, we used to meet every Sunday night in a peculiar place. It was a Russian emigrant who carried on this ... um ... Mischa Burlakov Ballet School down opposite the Quay in ... up above an old restaurant there which smelt of onions and everything like that. So we used to meet on a Sunday night there.

(5.00) Consequently, this young man, Kevin [Brennen?], he became quite famous on radio and went to England and - he was a very fat boy, he'd probably be about three years older than me, about twenty at this time - and he was like a junior Charles Lawton. He had a wonderful speaking voice. But he ... eventually I know he went to Britain and he was on radio quite a lot and then he was in early television programs. I used to see him but I've completely lost track now on.

However, it was Sunday nights we used to meet there and how I'm mentioning it is is that it was at one of those Sunday nights that war broke out and I can always still distinctly remember that Sunday night about ten o'clock when the Prime Minister announced. So your DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 4 of 16 immediate thoughts were all the young men you knew, you know, probably going to war. So ... that was where we were at ten o'clock that night when the ... we were at war.

So you were listening to the radio?

Yes. We all listened to the radio because we'd been rehearsing, you see, for this play we were going to put on. Naturally we knew that there were going to be announcements; everything was coming up to that. So I remember it was a Sunday night as far as I can remember and ... about ten o'clock, I think it was Prime Minister Menzies was at the time, and he announced that Germany had not accepted the ultimatum from Britain and consequently the Empire was at war with ... state of war existed with Germany, so ...

How did you ... what did you think that your role in the war might be?

Well, I didn't think anything at that time. I was only seventeen then, and I didn't immediately think ... your thoughts went immediately to the young men you knew. My thoughts went immediately to even the half-a-dozen young men that were in the ... you couldn't help looking at them and thinking, 'Well, life is going to change enormously for all of you'. You didn't think so much of yourself, but you thought of the ... and of course it was way over in Europe. It didn't ... you didn't feel it was close to your shores and that, but it was ... it was a rather devastating feeling at that time, to realise that you'd been reading up all the preliminaries to ... trying to avert war. Naturally you felt apprehensive, so ... I think it was a bit of bewilderment you felt.

Did you think of yourself as British at that time or Australian?

Oh no, definitely Australian. I never ... but I always had a strong feeling towards Britain as being the Mother Country and that, even though my parents weren't British you know, they were ... I was about a third generation Australian, and no, I always had a distinctly Australian feeling but you had that ... I'd always been interested in history and had a very sound knowledge of the European theatres - of countries - and I felt a great sense of loyalty to the people in Europe and Britain at was going to happen to them now.

Just going back a little bit to your childhood, you went to a Catholic school. Was religion ... did religion play a large part in your upbringing?

Yes, it always had.

And so you ... sorry, I'll just say that again. So when you enlisted, did you say that you were Catholic?

Yes, it's on my documents here.

And were there other Catholic girls joining up?

Not in the four ... first fourteen, no. There was no other Catholic until quite a long time. One of the other groups that came in ... later on, towards the end of 1941, there was one Catholic amongst them. But the Parish Priest of Queanbeyan was also the Chaplin to HMAS Harman, DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 5 of 16 so naturally, one of my first duties when I went to Harman - the first Saturday after we arrived - I went and made myself known to the Parish Priest ... and he was also the Chaplin.

So religion never ... was never a problem?

Oh no, no, never a problem. In fact, the commander of the station was very helpful and seeing that we were able to attend our religious commitments.

What did your father do?

He was a foreman baker.

(10.00) And at that time, what class did you consider yourself to be?

I don't know, I don't ever feel ... felt that class ... um ... was any ... I didn't feel that way. I just felt I was myself and I was ... I had esteem in myself - I never suffered with over ... I was never over confident but I was always quite confident. I suppose the only thing that growing up in those years - not so much class that you felt - it was ... there was a lot of religious antipathy between people. I wouldn't say discrimination, but there was a lot of antipathy amongst people, you know. And being a Catholic, there were times when you suddenly found that religion was a ... um ... was a drawback that ... I suppose growing up so ... um ... accepting my lifestyle and my parents and everything like that, I didn't really feel that religion should be something that distracted. And many of my young friends in those days - when I was seventeen and that ... I played tennis and everything like that - and I found that they weren't Catholics, but amongst the ... our young ones, it wasn't an antipathy - it was more between their parents and people like that. But generally speaking, I never found my religion any drawback. In fact I found that in meeting ... um ... any romances or anything I had I found that they respected the ... my attitude to things. But as far as class was concerned, no, I didn't like that, although I did find a lot of it when you join the navy, because it is very, very strong in the navy - ranks and class. The upper deck and the lower deck ... this was quite a ... um ... something I didn't like, I never have liked.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Well, I suppose I always think that people should be ... um ... recognised and ... classed as an individual for what they are, not from the background they've come from, or not from the ... particular work they were doing or anything like that. I believe that people should be judged on them - as they're an individual as a character and not ... I believe in discipline and authority, and respecting that, but not being subservient to it - respecting them because they are the higher authority and they hold a higher rank to you and you respected them for it - but not because I felt I was inferior to them, and that's ... I felt I could never ever ... I could never ever pander to people in order to gain anything out of it, you know, either rank, or position, or anything like that.

Can you give me any examples of how the class system, if you like, worked in the navy?

Well, in the navy of the era when I entered the navy, that would be at the end of the `30s, and beginning of the `40s, it was very, very unusual for a member of the navy, who belonged to DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 6 of 16 the non-commissioned ranks - or the lower deck as it was called - to be able to rise to the commissioned ranks. Very rare. Usually they finished at warrant officer. That was the highest non-commissioned rank. But if, in the rare cases when they did become into the commissioned rank, they were never, ever really accepted by the members of the officers who had obtained their commission through the usual channels, either ... um ... going to the cadet school - if they were Australians - at Flinders Naval Depot, or, if they were British they'd gone to the cadet school in Britain, which was down near Portsmouth somewhere, I think; I forget the name of the main cadet school in Britain. I know that's where Prince Phillip went through - the Duke of Edinburgh.

(15.00) So ... um ... I think ... I only ever met one who became a lieutenant-commander and I always found that he felt his position very insecurely, even though he was a ... um ... regarded as a ... an outstanding man in his field. He couldn't seem to get over the fact himself that he ... he always felt - I felt - we all felt - that he was inferior to the other commissioned ranks.

And did this have an effect on you?

Oh, I suppose the only effect it had on me was ... sympathy. I always felt very, very sympathetic towards this man - that he couldn't overcome this ... lack of self-confidence instead of feeling very, very proud. And also, I think the other non-commissioned ranks - up to warrant officers - they still regarded him as one of them, and I don't think they gave ... and because he was so unconfident in his role as ... as a lieutenant-commander, they ... um ... they didn't quite understand him, I don't think. He was like a man in limbo, I always felt. He neither belonged to one group or the other. He'd left the non-commissioned ranks; he'd gone into the commissioned ranks, but he didn't feel he belonged in either. This was my impression, anyway.

And what happened when it came to the series of promotions? How did that use to ... ?

Well, at first they were ... we did some elementary exams but ... um ... we didn't do the ... the commander of HMAS Harman then decided he would give out certain ... he made most of the twelve original wireless operators - they all became leading telegraphists - he saw that they all became leading telegraphists - and then ... um ... he then made one or two petty officers and then ... well, it was after that that the ... I had left Harman then - gone down to the signal station at HMAS Cerberus, which was Flinders, that was May 1943, and by this time the signals girl at Flinders considered that it was time that they set things in right order. And then they then issued a ... the necessary proclamations, or whatever it was, the ... paperwork went back and forth that exams had to be set for any future ... So therefore any of those that were already a petty officer had to do an exam to qualify them for petty officer. And subsequently I did three exams at the signals school. I think I was the only member of the original twelve that did exams down there but some of the other eleven telegraphists that had gone down there with me - they did their preliminary exams, too. But I did three exams which brought me up to what they call wireless telegraphist - WT1 - and that did entitle me to become a chief petty officer, but at this time I wasn't even a petty officer. So, embarrassingly, they didn't have any petty officers down at Flinders at that stage, so they were embarrassed enough - they had to send me back to Harman where I obtained my petty officer qualifications, and then I took on the duties of a petty officer of the watch, you see, with the male petty officer, who was in complete charge. DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 7 of 16

So, although there was already a petty officer at Harman you were the first one to do the exam, is that right?

Yes, as far as I know, yes. So I set the precedent, so then the ... um ... actual manual work was done at Harman - that's transmitting morse and receiving morse - but all the papers, like on procedure and ... WT procedure and coding and deciphering and everything like that - they were all set at Flinders and sent to Harman, and they had to be done according to the signal schools ... um ... questions.

(20.00) Okay, let's backtrack a bit. How did you first ... did you join the Women's Emergency Signalling Corps?

Yes.

So can you just tell me a little bit of background of ...

Well that was rather unusual. I had a friend who was a member of the ... um ... the air force. He was already in the air force when war broke out. He was a wireless operator and ... um ... we were friends - I knew him - and he was in the first Australians that were sent away in January, 1940 - sent to England to man the Sunderland squadron planes. So in other words, apart from our navy that was already in the theatres of war, they were the first Australians to go into actual action. So, being a wireless operator, I was naturally a little bit interested in that thing. So, at that time - I was working at Universal Pictures - and one day I saw the lass on the switch wearing this forest-green uniform with the lightening insignia of wireless, you see. So I became quite interested - asked her about it and she told me and she said, 'Would you like to join?'. So this was early 1940 - very early - so I said, 'Yes, I'd be very interested', so she took me up to where, at that time, Mrs McKenzie was conducting this Women's Emergency Signalling Corps up in Clarence Street in an old shop - I think it was number nine. So I went up and joined and strangely enough, she went out of it, she didn't keep it up, but I was very enthusiastic - I really loved doing morse. So I joined up and ... you then had to set a goal of trying to get to twenty words a minute and after you'd got five words a minute you'd get a little chevron, ten words a minute you'd get another chevron, and you'd get three by the time you were twenty words a minute. So I stayed there, that was in 1940, then Mrs McKenzie changed her headquarters to across the road in number ten Clarence Street, which was the top of a disused warehouse. That's where we continued on.

And did you just go there after your normal work?

Yes. I started off one night a week and by the time we were well into 1940-1941 I was going up there practically every night ... afternoon after work, because the girls were very good at morse, really very good, and were very loyal to Mrs McKenzie, and she w s a wonderful woman. She had wonderful qualifications herself - and her goals and direction; she saw what we could be used for finally in the services, because she knew the ... how little we had trained. And by that time, of course, the Empire Air Scheme had been started where youths were taken into the air force; trained at Bradfield Park in the elementary training, and then they had to ... they were ... and most of them had to get ten words a minute in morse in order to qualify for aircrew - and they all wanted to be in aircrew, naturally. So, they couldn't get enough training at ... um ... in their initial training places where they were, so they used to DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 8 of 16 come in hundreds and hundreds to number ten, Clarence Street, where we helped them with their morse training. So, they then went - the ones who were chosen for aircrews - then went to Canada and did all their training in Canada, and they were the Australians in the air force that ended up in Europe sending, you know, in all the ... and most of the bombers and Spitfire pilots, ... pilots of everything.

What did they think about being trained by women?

They loved it, oh, they didn't mind it at all. There was no discrimination whatsoever. They were so thankful and appreciative of being helped - and some of them were very dumb (laughs) when it came to morse. I always feel that the ... musical people seem to be able to - particularly transmitting morse - always seem to be better at transmitting if they had a musical sense in their training and that. I had learnt the piano for many years and I always attributed that to the fact that I could send very clear morse.

(25.00) What did your family think of you going up there practically every night of the week?

Oh, well, those days, I mean, we were so in the midst of war and everything like that that ... um ... they were very pleased that I was contributing so much effort ... I'd only stay until about eight-thirty - something like that ... um ... and in those days you were quite ... there was no fear on the trains or even walking home. I had a fairly long walk home to where I lived, but you never had any fear of darkness or night in those days.

Did you used to wear the uniform?

Yes, I'd ... um ... on the particular nights that I had to - was my official night - I'd wear the uniform to the office, but ... um ... other days I'd just go up there in civilian clothes.

Did you always want to join the WRAN's?

No, there was no WRANs, there was no thought of the navy taking personnel at all. The initial service that Mrs McKenzie was striving for was the RAAF, the Royal Australian Air Force, and it was mostly the RAAF that she was doing her communicating with, and of course I was very keen - if they were going to form a RAAF ... a WAAAF - that I'd be in that group, and I was actually chosen to be in the WAAAF - the first group that ... I was chosen to be in that ... oh, a certain number she had - quite a few - that she would call on if the WAAAF would accept women. But then, Commander Newman, down in Melbourne - who was in charge of communications - he suddenly, for some unaccountable reason, became very interested. So he came to Sydney, saw Mrs McKenzie, and then it all happened very, very suddenly. The navy come on the scene, and we were being ... he interviewed us and tried us out, and then, it almost seemed as though the WAAAF and the navy were vying with each other. And then, Mrs Mac said, 'All right,'- she picked out a certain number that were ... we were definitely going to ... they were thinking that we'd go into the navy. And the WAAAF ... the RAAF were sort of quiet, and suddenly they decided they were going to form a WAAAF, and Mrs Mac picked out another twelve and sort of shoved them off to the WAAAF ... RAAF and they actually went in a week before us. Then the navy came along ... it all happened very, very confusedly and suddenly. I think I only had a week to tell my parents and even tell my office that I'd been ... that they wanted to take me into the navy and ... only had a week in which to prepare for it. DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 9 of 16

Were you disappointed that you went to the navy rather than the air force?

Yes. Later on, not then, I didn't. I felt as though I was fairly privileged to have joined the navy but later on, as the years went by, I did regret that I had not joined the WAAAF. Because, for one thing, most of the original twelve in the WAAAF were ... obtained commissions very quickly - well, compared to us - and they were taken off watch-keeping duties - a lot of them became ... went into administering in the communications and different other things, so that their lifestyle was far more pleasant than ours was. I watch-kept all those years I was in the navy. I think the longest period I was ever off watch-keeping was five weeks. And it took a great toll on your nerves and on your lifestyle. Keeping up watch- keeping duties is very, very ... anybody will tell you - particularly naval watch-keeping duties - four hours on, four hours off; eight hours on, eight hours off. Sometimes for seventy-two hours you're working a shift like that. So, yes, I would say that I did regret - from a personal, comfortable point of view. (laughs)

This is the end of the ...

END OF TAPE 1 - SIDE A

START OF TAPE 2 - SIDE B

Identification: This is the second side of the first tape of the interview with Mrs Wright.

Why did you decide that you wanted to join the WRANS?

Well, after being in the Women's Emergency Signalling Corps for about fifteen months I should say, this was the direction we were going in, most of us. We, particularly with Mrs McKenzie guiding us, and knowing that Britain already had WRNS and WAAAFs, she knew the time would eventually come when women would have to go into our services because we just didn't have enough trained men personnel. And I suppose by 1941 - April 1941 - although I think they were hoping to avoid a clash with Japan, I think the powers that be knew that this was what was coming and therefore they knew they would have to have trained personnel because the Pacific would suddenly become ... the fleet would have to be in the Pacific. The British fleet as it was had several ships all up in big ... Singapore was a big naval base then and consequently as you knew and know subsequently when the Japanese did come down to Malaya and Singapore, the British lost the Ark Royal and everything there, it was just ... So, by ... during all this period, up until then, we knew we were aiming towards this and therefore we were accepting it. And I think, like the boys, we realised, well, you wanted to serve your country in the best capacity you could.

And you had to actually have an interview?

Yes, we were all interviewed separately by Commander Newman and he also ... um ... ah ...

Can you remember anything about that?

DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 10 of 16

No, I can't actually remember the ... I can't actually remember whether he listened to our transmitting morse or sending it. I can't quite remember then or whether he just left it to Mrs McKenzie to choose the ones that she knew would be proficient enough. So ...

So there was a big flurry of activity?

Yes, we only had a week - a week.

And can you recall the day you left for Canberra?

Yes, very vividly. Getting on the ... Most of us, you know, had never been very far from home; never been anywhere alone from home and Canberra seemed like the other side of Australia to us in those days. So there were many tearful farewells on the railway station. It was April, it was getting quite chilly then at the end of April and I remember my mother there and it was a very sad farewell and ... Of course, you feel that sense of adventure when the young men were even going off in their ships and different things to war. I don't think you realised the enormity of the ... well, the situation you're getting into. So ...

But I can always remember the day we arrived. That was - later in the day we arrived, I suppose, about one-thirty by train and very soon after we were arrived we were taken up to the wireless station. I can vividly ... I even mentioned it to Marion Stevens in recent times, and she didn't remember the feeling but I felt it very much. The wireless room had a very big panel of glass where you looked into the wireless room which was very quiet except for all the traffic going on in there and I can still remember looking through that huge glass partition at all the sailors, you know, sitting at their wireless sets transmitting and receiving and so forth and that.

(5.00) And I ... I was only nineteen, you know, and I ... my legs trembled with, you know, apprehension really. I thought, 'What have I got myself into? How can I possibly go in there and act as a wireless operator?'. But anyway, he was very good, our commander, and what we did was, for two weeks, we - what we call 'double banked'. We had a set of earphones on us and a key and we'd ... that's how we learnt and within two weeks we took over.

Can you describe for me the cottages that you lived in?

Yes. Well, they were ... they were built for the naval personnel and their families and ... as the men - men were put then ... there were some married men in certain cottages but any of the ones that were unmarried were all in a cottage on their own and that. So we took over - there were three to a cottage. No, four to a cottage - so we must have taken over twelve cottages ... three cottages, I should say and four of us were allocated to a cottage; there were two bedrooms. I always remember the - this is an amusing thing - Jess Prain, who became Jess Doyle, she and I were put into No. 18 cottage with No. 1 WRAN who was then Frances Provan and also our youngest WRAN who was [June McLeod?], she was our youngest one, just barely eighteen. And, of course, Frances being No. 1 and being quite a bit older than us, she more or less took a position of authority amongst us and I was WRAN 7, Jess Prain who became Jess Doyle when she married was WRAN 8, so we were allocated to No. 18 cottage. Well, the cottage had a lovely big front bedroom and a little back bedroom. Well, Frances being No. 1 she more or less thought, 'Well, I'm going to go straight into the double bedroom - the front bedroom - and June, the youngest one, was her room-mate'. But this was the first DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 11 of 16 time Jess and I really stood our ground (laughs) when we were discussing what rooms we'd have. And Jess looked at me and I looked at her and we said, we thought, 'Well, it's not right even though Frances is older than us and had the position of authority, more or less in charge of us, why should she take that room', so Frances knew that we were digging our heels in a little bit and so she said, 'Oh well' - I don't know whether we suggested it or she - I think it must have been Jess or I suggested, 'Well, toss a coin' and you wouldn't believe it but Jess and I won. (laughs) We got the front bedroom. Well, it was the ... I don't know how long that Frances ... she didn't subside there very long because she eventually went into another cottage with the three other WRANS whose watch she was on.

But ... so, Jess and I were wonderful room-mates even though we were on absolutely opposite watches. In other words, she was on duty when I was on off duty and vice versa. We were the most wonderful room-mates you could ever imagine. She would always have a hot water bag in my bed and I'd have one in her bed when we came off duty at one-thirty, or two a.m. in the morning. See, we'd have different watches: you'd go on at twelve o'clock - was one watch - twelve till four and they called them the `dog' watches - twelve till four; four to eight. They were the four-hour watches and they call them the `dog' watches. Then you'd go on from eight o'clock to two a.m. and then two a.m. till eight a.m. and then you'd continue that on for another twenty-four hours. So, you can imagine you need a good room-mate to be considerate of you, that you had to have sleep when she's off duty. But there was never ... never a cross word between us and we'd always have a hot water bag which comes to a funny incident.

(10.00) I came home one night, tired out, you know - about two-thirty in the morning - dragged my bedclothes down to hop into bed and my hot water bag ... and my hot water bag had burst. (laughs) My bed was wringing wet. You can imagine at two-thirty a.m. being on duty for eight hours how you felt. She'd been so good putting the hot water bag ... and so all I did was turn my bed ... my mattress upside down and crawl into bed just the way it was. So ...

Did you choose your room-mate?

No, we were allocated by Mrs McKenzie allocated us - the cottages.

So how did she ... What did she base her ...

I think it was Mrs McKenzie allocated it because I said to her years later - or a long time later - because Frances was rather hard to get along with. She was very strict, very severe and ... didn't have a very youthful sense of humour and I said to Mrs Mac, times later, 'Why did you choose Jess and I to be in with Frances?' and June being the youngest was also a little bit ... she'd been a bit spoilt by her family and she was a little bit hard to get along with too. And Mrs Mac told me something which I was quite pleased about; it was a bit flattering. She said, 'I chose you and Jess because I thought of all the twelve or fourteen you were the two most compatible, that would be able to get along with her'. So I thought, 'Well, that was a tribute to Jess and I' and Jess really proved it. She was a wonderful woman she grew into be.

Can you describe for me the actual layout of the cottage? Can you sort of take me through the rooms?

DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 12 of 16

Yes, well, you walked into a hall - this is No.18 - on the right-hand side there was a lovely big lounge room with an open fireplace and on the left ... then you went along another corridor to the left which took you into a front bedroom and a smaller back bedroom and a bathroom. In those days we had chip heaters - oh, you can't imagine what it was like to have baths and showers and that - and ... then a big kitchen it had too. But, of course, we didn't use the kitchen except if we wanted to make coffee or tea or anything like that because another cottage had been allocated as our mess, you see. And ... then it had a ... laundry with a copper fed by wood - and this was another ... oh ... catastrophe. At first, when we first got there, the commander used to allocate so many sailors used to have to go and chop our wood. We'd have wood delivered to each cottage - chop our wood up, you see. But after a while there got less and less sailors around so we had to do it ourselves. Well, you can't imagine; I think I've got photographs there where we're chopping our wood into splinters for our laundry and then for the chip heater in the bathroom. But, eventually, most of us gave up washing our shirts and our linen and that and we eventually used to send them all into a laundry in Queanbeyan.

That was the allocation when we first arrived and that continued on, I suppose, into late 1942 at least and then the lounge room was turned into a bedroom and three beds were put in there. And the front bedroom - three beds were put in there. They didn't have enough room you see for the WRANS that were coming in by the end of 1942.

Can you remember what the reaction of the men at Harman was to the ...

Oh, delighted. They just loved the WRANS. We got along very well. We had a wonderful rapport with the ... And I think they ... after they started working with us they realised the girls were very qualified - some of them - and very conscientious with their work; totally conscientious and a bit like young girls a lot of them. They were, you know, they were quite a handful to the commander, you know, a bit of breaking ship and doing things like that which you weren't supposed to do. It used to quite ... this is one of the things that took quite a bit to get used to, you know. You had to catch a liberty boat to go ashore and you had to come on board and that. It all seemed so odd to us; we were land-lubbers and yet we were ... all this went on.

(15.00) Another amusing thing, the nearest river to us was the Little Molonglo River - it used to run down some way away from Harman - and on at least two occasions, you know, when we were at war with Japan they knew that HMAS Harman and Belconnen was our main big wireless station, but they ... that's why we never took any notice of the Japanese announcements. They would announce on Tokyo Rose, or somebody like that, that HMAS Harman had been torpedoed. It gave us a great laugh because the nearest water was the Little Molonglo River. (laughs) These amusing things that went on, you know, we had great laughs about it.

But the men at sea, it was quite a shock to them when they suddenly realised that there were women in the navy and ... they were the ones who certainly received our morse very appreciatively. Because, you see, as I said to you before, in war time when ships are at sea they have complete wireless silence. The only time they break wireless silence is if they're ... if they're in distress, they'd been attacked or anything like that and one frequency was kept completely free and that was what we call ship-shore frequency. And the ships, if they'd been torpedoed or in distress or under attack from the air, they'd break WT silence and then they'd come up with their emergency signals there. We took many, many signals off that ... that ... DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 13 of 16

And that used to be one of the hardest watches of all. We'd have to spend two hours on that, just listening, and immediately a ship came up on the air in distress, well, not only atmospherics would you have to contend with but Japanese interference. They'd start jamming your frequency. So it was very hard and you had to be very quick to get their position. But, I always remember too the fall of Singapore, the last signals from them - the last signals from what was then Indonesia but we used to call it Batavia, the Dutch were there you see ... last signals from Batavia. And then this June McLeod I spoke of, well as she was the youngest, she was uncanny when it came to reading morse through atmospherics and interference from the Japanese and they were desperately trying to get the last signals from General Wainwright on Corregidor and through all the atmospherics and enemy interference it was terribly hard and I always remember - we were off duty, our watch, I was on the watch with June McLeod, there were three of us on a watch - and I always remember she was brought on duty ... back on duty to try and read this last signal which we did manage to get and they were then sent to navy office which then sent it to General MacArthur. It was a very, very ... his last signal was very sad.

Can you remember how it read?

No, I can't remember it. It was just that they had to surrender.

And how did you all feel at the station?

Oh well, naturally, even after Pearl Harbour, we ... it was all very ... I wasn't on duty when the actual bombing took place. I was off duty. But the ones that have told me that were on duty, it was rather harrowing, you know, to get the news. And within ten days the Americans had been flown in to take over duty at Harman and they set up their - there was a group, a whole group of Americans were flown in ...

This was after Pearl ...

This was after Pearl Harbour. We didn't have any Americans with us then and we didn't actually ... weren't in communication with Pearl Harbour because America wasn't in the war. But as soon as Pearl Harbour the Americans were in the war and therefore Pearl Harbour became ... we had to keep in communication. It was like a network goes round.

(20.00) (Clears throat) ... excuse me. Ah, what happened when a ship is at see, we would transmit signals to New Zealand or to Singapore or to Batavia and then they'd transmit the signal back to us. This is what would be on the ... what they call the Big Bell's Broadcast. It was on a very powerful transmitter, the most powerful in the south-west Pacific, was at Harman - although the transmitting station was at Belconnen and the actual work was done on the landlines were at Harman. Well now, when that signal was transmitted to, say, New Zealand or Singapore they'd transmit it back again, then it would be transmitted again and back again, all in the hours when the ships at sea would be able to receive it. So that wireless operator on that particular ship would be taking down that signal and in many cases he would know by the routing whether it was meant for his ship or not. In the cases of most of them I think they had to take all of the signals but in some of them, where they probably didn't have enough wireless operators, they may have only taken the signals that were meant for them. But this is how the direction of the war took place, you see. The ships were taking their signals and so when Pearl Harbour came into the war - was bombed - and they came into the DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 14 of 16 war, the Americans, they then set up the whole network, went right around you see. So signals that went back and forth, the ships in the area would be getting their directions where to go; what to do.

What effect did the presence of the Americans have at Harman? How were you directly affected if at all?

Well, we enjoyed their company. They were ... very happy group to get along with. They also brought advanced equipment with them such as special typewriters that all typed in block letters. So those of us who could type suddenly found that the Americans used to share their typewriters with us. So instead of taking our signals by hand we were able to take them on their typewriters. And, generally speaking, they were a very, very pleasant lot of people. We got along marvellously with them both on a recreational level and a working level too.

One of the strange anomalies of the Americans that made me realise how well-equipped they were and how they wer thought of very individually by the ... in the American authorities. When they first arrived, of course, they were addicted to coffee so their percolators went everywhere with them; these glass percolators. And right up for months and months and months into the war, well into 1943, if they broke their percolators they were always replaced with more percolators. Here we were in the midst of a war (laughs), fighting with everything, and the Americans were still being supplied with their ... their glass percolators. Just the same as friends that knew them - later on I found out after the war - they were still supplied everywhere with ice-cream and everything on their ships. And the Americans, contrary to Australians and British, they didn't sleep in hammocks, they slept in bunks. All our Australian and British serviceman ... sailors, had to string their hammocks up anywhere they could find a spare spot to put them. So the American was treated very ... And another thing that hurt us a great deal: they got about five times our money. (laughs) This really used to rock us, you know, the money they used to receive. They used to get about, I think they used to ... an ordinary sailor used to get about the equivalent of eighty dollars a month, whereas, we were getting about twenty dollars a month.

So did you make any personal friends amongst the Americans?

Yes, yes. I made personal friends. It didn't keep up after the war. The more personal ones I made was when I went to Flinders. Some of our WRANS were also ... quite a few were at a place called Moorabbin in Melbourne, attached to Melbourne navy office, what they call Monterey, and these were involved in intelligence work. You know, because the Japanese had a different morse code to the western morse code, so therefore people had to be trained to intercept Japanese morse you see. So this is what they were doing. And so they joined the Americans down there who were very advanced in this part of field and ... there, oh, must have been about twelve or fifteen WRANS there and one of my particular friends was with them.

(25.00) So, although I was at Flinders and they were at Moorabbin - which is just out of Melbourne - all on my leave I used to spend with this WRAN who then had a couple of friends in particular amongst the Americans and we became very, very friendly. We used to spend a lot of our leave together and when they subsequently were sent up into the islands and that - I've still got all their letters they wrote - and they ... I wrote to their sister - one of them, their sister - and, as a matter of fact, I've only just learnt in the last year that some of these DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 15 of 16 were coming to Australia visiting and one in particular, he ... he ... I found out his address and I used to write to his sister. So I wrote to him and I received a letter the other day, as a matter of fact and he's living in the same ... Arkansas where he came from before. But they were very wonderful friends. And the other one, unfortunately - that I used to know very well, too, write to - he died last year, too. So, we did have a great friendship with them.

And what sort of things did you use to do on your leave or in your leisure time? Can you remember any particular leaves?

Oh, well, when I say leave, down there in Melbourne, I used to go up to Melbourne and stay at a hostel or something like that and we'd go to pictures or restaurants or things like that. That was our main ... Or if ... we'd go out on picnics or it we got to know somebody in Melbourne, I got to know a very nice family in Melbourne and they became very, very good friends and ... then I introduced these two young Americans to them and they often had us for dinner and hospitality like that. That was down there. But at Harman, well, there wasn't much. There was a service centre in Canberra we went into to dances and things like that but it was mostly just the pictures.

I think what changed my life quite a bit, when I returned to Canberra - HMAS Harman - in 1944, became a petty officer, by that I was able to leave the station whenever I wanted to. I had complete freedom once you become a petty officer; you came and go as you went. And the Netherlands East Indies Air Force had taken over Fairbairn as their headquarters and they used to fly Mitchell bombers, B25s, and they had another base up in Rockhampton or Bundaberg and also Darwin. And they used to come down to Canberra for recreational leave after being in Darwin bombing over in Indonesia.

Well, through some friends of mine I got to know quite a lot of the pilots and they had taken over the Hotel Queanbeyan as their mess and they quartered there, most of the officers, and I was invited to quite a lot of the celebrations they had there and I'd often have a meal there and dinner there and that because I knew the two civilians who were in charge of the hotel, you see - one was the secretary and one was the housekeeper - and through them I began to know quite a lot of the pilots. And because I was in uniform I was able to get quite a lot of ... I could hitchhike down to Sydney. Instead of going down by train I'd often get a flight down by aircraft, you see, and one particular ... this major, he was just ... I just knew him through visiting my friends there and that, so on this trip to Sydney he was in charge of the aircraft - usually two pilots in it - and when you went in the aircraft you didn't have anywhere to sit because it was a fully ... armed aircraft. You usually had to sit up perhaps in the air gunner's position, you know, the mid-gunner. So this day he ... I got a lift to Sydney, so he thought he'd make it pretty different for me. So, I remember, he took the aircraft out to the ... from Canberra out to the water, you know, Kiama or somewhere like that, and you wouldn't believe it, but he flew that aircraft parallel with the cliffs. I understood later on it was sixty foot off the water. And he flew that big bomber all the way up - he'd been a KLM pilot, you see, when he was taken into the NEI air force - he flew it right almost to the South Head - because he had to go up high then. I always remember there were fishermen down in a boat as we went over and they're frantically waving. And it was an uncanny experience to be going along parallel with the cliffs. So when he got ...

END OF TAPE 1 - SIDE B

DAPHNE WRIGHT Page 16 of 16

START OF TAPE 2 - SIDE A

Identification: This is the second tape, first side and we were in the middle of an exciting, gripping story about travelling parallel to the cliffs. 'And when we got there ...', that's how you finished off.

Well, when we arrived up towards Sydney, he had to go to a more required height. And, I'll never forget that; he took the aircraft right around the harbour. So this was end of 1944 I'd say, or it might have been early '45 because the harbour was absolutely crammed with ships. The King George V was there - which was a mighty big battleship - innumerable American ships were in the harbour and Australian ships and it was fascinating to look down, you know what it's ... well, it always is fascinating to look down on a harbour but it was just a battleground of naval ships. I'll never forget that sight. It was really a tremendous weekend and I think it was that weekend that I went over the King George V. A few of us were given the opportunity to go over the big battleship that was ... I think it was up in Circular Quay - it was moored in Circular Quay.

END OF TAPE 2 - SIDE A