NORMAN DUFFY

Joan Bock 11/04/1995

E0099 - E100 Disc 1 1:02:54 – Disc 2 20:21 Lisa Iles

20/10/2015 City of Joondalup

1:01:57 This is an interview with Norm Duffy for the Australia Remembers project, at his home in Wanneroo, on 11 April 1995.

JB: Would you like to tell me your first name and where you were born?

ND: Norm Duffy. In Perth, West Australia. 23 March 1917.

JB: What about your parents, Norm?

ND: Well, the Dad’s father, he came out from Ireland and of course the father was born in Perth and in his schooling days he was… his schooling days were, especially the high school, was the Christian Brothers College in Fremantle and he attained the Dux of Christian Brothers College during his education. And, of course, in his later years they shifted out to Wanneroo and took up residence at the Twelve Mile and that’s where he market gardened. In 1903 he was appointed the first Secretary of the first Wanneroo Road Board and he held that position until he passed away in 1924. During his… and during that period, I’d say 1923 to ’24, he was also the Secretary of the Wanneroo Race Club, he was Secretary of the Wanneroo Agricultural Society. In 1906 he, 1907 I should say, he married Eva Matilda Cockman. They had eight children, there were seven boys and one girl and unfortunately the Dad died at the early age of 49, he died in 1924.

JB: And he left your Mum a widow?

ND: He left Mum a widow with eight kids, eight children, the eldest was 16, that was Bill and the youngest was 12 months named Norris.

JB: What about your education Norm?

ND: Oh, my education, well. My education was, all my education was done at the Wanneroo School, Wanneroo Primary School up at the Fifteen Mile.

JB: Was that Dundebar Road?

ND: That’s the corner of Dundebar Road that was the old Wanneroo School. Now, at the, whether I was brilliant or not, I don’t know. At the age of 10 I was in the highest standard of class that they would teach out in Wanneroo. If you wanted to go to a higher education, which my Dad did have mapped out for me, he was going to send me to college, but of course he passing on, that omitted me from going there because Mum just couldn’t afford to send us. But if we had wanted to go to a better education, we had to go to Perth Boys’ School which is in James Street, Perth. Well, we were poor as the proverbial church mice and Mum, well, she just couldn’t afford to send me there, so that’s all about it. As I say I reached the standard, the highest standard for the school would teach, when I was 10. And I done four years of the one class because the teacher wouldn’t teach any higher.

JB: And you couldn’t leave because you had to…

ND: I couldn’t leave because I had to, 14 years of age was when, that was the age before you could leave school. When I was about 13 I suppose, around about 13, our headmaster, Herbert Speers, I only had two, Herbert Speers’ wife in the bubs division and himself in the, say, third, fourth, fifth and sixth standards. As I say before, when I was 13 he used to say to me, ‘Well Norm Duffy, it’s not much use of you staying here in class because you’re just learning the same lesson over and over.’ And he had a, he was a bit of a greenie in those days and he used to say to me ‘Well look, I’ve got a lot of pine, young pines,’ he says, ‘You and Cecil Cockman and Roy Ashby,’ (we’re about the same age) he said. ‘You three boys go and dig holes and plant these pine trees,’ and that’s what we did. All those pine trees were up in the Wanneroo School grounds where the holes were, they were planted by me and Cecil Cockman and Roy Ashby. And the Forestry Department did, when they took over, they did cut them down and they got an enormous amount of timber from those pines that us kids planted.

JB: Did the funds go the school?

ND: I don’t know. No, well the Forestry had taken it over, I mean the school had shifted and it belonged to the Forestry Department. I think they sent it to the mill for their own purpose.

JB: What were you doing in the lead up to the war, Norm?

ND: Well, I had a contract, a mail contract, delivering mail from Perth to Yanchep daily and I also had a small poultry farm which was about 500 fowls just to supplement my income. But the majority of my time was, I’d say, was taken up with 5, 6-day a week from Perth to Yanchep delivering mail, also newspapers, bread, parcels, meat, any goods that the people from Wanneroo to Yanchep required. If I was able to supply, I did, because possibly I was the only contact those days between Wanneroo and Yanchep of the people. That was on ‘til I was joined the Army in October 1941. Prior to me going in, I mean the war broke out and I think I was playing tennis down in North Perth on Sunday 3 November 1939. And we listened to the radio and the news came over that the Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, was going to broadcast a message to the people of Australia - important message. So we knocked off our tennis early, all rushed home and had our ears tuned to the wireless and the 7 o’clock news came, Menzies came on, and he says the Germans had invaded Poland, Britain had declared war on Germany and consequently seeing that Australia was a part of the Commonwealth of Nations, Australia was at war also with Germany. The reactions, well, I think as far as the people around those times, they were a bit bewildered really, but as the weeks wore by, they said ‘Oh, it will be over in a few days,’ and ‘They’ll soon knock the Germans,’ but that didn’t eventuate. But seeing that Australia was 10, 12 thousand mile away from you, the impact didn’t seem to hit us because we had no, we didn’t, I mean you know, we weren’t, we had no bombs dropping on us, we had no aeroplanes, we had, you know, there was no inkling of war in Australia. The only thing that you read in the newspapers or listened to the wireless and of course every time when the news came on we all listened. I mean, things we getting a bit grim, a couple of the boys out here in Wanneroo joined up and a lot of the youngsters gave it thought, whether we should or we shouldn’t or, then the AIF, it was formed overseas, and people, should we? A lot of the youngsters, should we join or should we produce food or, you know. Run functions and collecting money for the comforts funds for the troops. I mean, that was to my way of thinking that was the impact it really had on people. I don’t think people really, really understood. I do really, I’m sincere, I don’t think they understood until, oh, that would be over I would say 1939 it started, I would say just in the early, of course I joined in… well I was called up in October 1941. But early in the ‘41s, the compulsory training came in and then I think people realised then, well things are not as rosy as we thought, because the powers that be must have known something that the people who didn’t know when they start calling youngsters up, you know for the compulsory training. Anyway I was called up in ’41, I lost my mail contract, I lost my poultry farm, but the powers that be wouldn’t listen, they said ‘No, you gotta go in the army.’ So that’s all about it, you know, so as I say, I lost my poultry farm and the eldest brother, Bill, took over the mail contract when my turn expired, you know.

JB: Were you married at this time, Norm?

ND: No, no, no I was single, no I was single then. But of course when we went in the army and that we were only greenhorns and this marching and pack drill and rifle drill, I mean it was something new to us all, but eventually we all took it like duck taking to water. But, in December 1941, when the Japs came in, then we thought, well the powers that be must have known something to call us all up because the Japs coming in on the side of the Germans. But really, I still don’t think the people visualised the gravity of it, really, especially the people of Wanneroo. After about six months, I mean we were bivouacked from pillar to post and from Dandaragan to Moora, Northam, sent for our training. If the people had had’ve only known how close the Japs were to Wanneroo, in the early 42s, they would have been worried. Because in the end of April in 1942, our battalion or the 13th Brigade, the lead Battalion the 44th and the 16th Battalion, we were bivouacked up around Moora, Dandaragan, Geraldton and, oh, would have been late April, one night we were called into the CO and I was a corporal then, why they give it to me I don’t know, but there you are, I must have been good looking. Anyway, I was a corporal and I had a section in the Battalion or in the Company really, the B Company of the Left Battalion, and we had each section comprised of 10 men. So we were called in about 8 o’clock one night to the CO’s tent and he says ‘Well look that Battalion have got to go out to the coast - Coast Patrol.’

JB: Where were you Norm, at this stage?

ND: We’re at Dandaragan, but we had to go out to Jurien Bay from Hill River, north to Dongara. And he said, ‘Well, your vehicle has all been rationed, you’ve got your camping equipment’ and he says ‘The last thing we’re going to issue you with is your ammunition.’ My weapon was an American Thomson machine gun, heavy as blazes too. But anyway, he said to me, ‘Here you are, here’s your packet of bullets,’ he said. ‘We’re that short of ammunition and rifles,’ he says. ‘People just don’t realise how short we are, we’ve got nothing,’ he said. ‘There’s 50 rounds for you.’ My Thompson machine gun fired 600 rounds a minute. He says, ‘Well, there’s 50.’ He said, ‘If the Japs come,’ he said. ‘49 for them and one for yourself.’ I said ’Oh no, this is lovely, this is.’ Anyway, he said ‘And there’s your box of 303.’ That’s the army rifle; we had the 303 bullets and the Bren gun 303s. He said, ‘There’s your box of ammunition,’ he says. ‘There are a thousand rounds.’ Eight men had their 303 rifles, my second in charge, Ken Steele, he was my Bren gun, he carried, he had the Bren gun. That Bren gun fired 500 rounds a minute, so you could imagine how… if we’d had occasion to use them, how long 1,000 rounds would have lasted. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were sent out to the coast and my camp was sent to North Head and that was 20 miles north of Jurien Bay. There was one bay to Two River and 20 miles up was another camp of 10 or 12 men and then 20 miles further was me and 20 miles further on was another section of 12 men. So in one, two, three, four lookout or sections, we had 30 miles of coast to patrol and the headquarters of the 13th Brigade was 80 miles inland away from us, so you could imagine what hope we would have had if the Japs had have landed. But, getting back to if the people of Wanneroo would have only known how close the Japs were, they were close, because out from Jurien Bay, there’s, I think, there’s about three islands out there, and we used to listen to the Jap submarines. Every night they would come up and they would charge their batteries because they were patrolling outside the water from Jurien Bay to latch on to any of our merchant ships that were plying between Fremantle and, say, Darwin. Anyway, we used to see them there and hear them there and they would, you could see them flash light from that island, across Jurien Bay, from Jurien Bay around to North Head is much like a horseshoe. And there was lights flashing on shore and the Japs used to signal to. And that was as honest as I sit in this chair, because when we were up there the Japs did sink a freighter out from Jurien Bay but my time that we were up there patrolling the coast. And one night in there in particular I had two signallers with me, they were from Victoria, and one says to me, ‘Norm,’ he says ‘By crikey, they’re close tonight.’ He said ‘I can’t get a message out and I can’t get, you know, I can’t hear anything because,’ he said ‘They’re jamming me,’ he said. We expected them to land at night there, but they didn’t. And we did manage to get a signal through to headquarters and they had a… they sent a plane out from Pearce and the next morning, you know, you’d see them out at the night time, because the next morning, and they did sight the Japs 100 miles out from us and they dropped two depth chargers but they didn’t go off. That is true, they didn’t go off. And as I say, they used to come up every night, they were that close and we were there for five weeks and then we were relieved with the 16th Battalion, they came and relieved us.

JB: Was this before Darwin was bombed?

ND: No. Look crikey to hell. Well I know, well this was in, oh no, this was the end of April, about the middle of April; I was there five weeks, near the end of May. Now, I just can’t recollect when Darwin was bombed, I mean there should be records somewhere, but they were down here close, you know. If people had known, they’d have panicked.

JB: And where did they send you after that?

ND: Well, we were brought back to Dandaragan and that’s when the whole 11th Battalion, we all transferred to the RAF, to go overseas. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I don’t know, for me, but we were having a game of football and I put my foot in a rabbit burrow and I broke my ankle. Snapped my ankle and I was in plaster for 16 weeks. So through hospitals and the, by the time I’d gone more or less they B Classed me, I had a medical examination and they reckoned that I wasn’t fit to go on overseas, so I missed out on my unit, so they went to New Guinea but I didn’t on account of that rabbit warren.

JB: Can we just come back to Wanneroo again for a while, just about feelings. How did the community react to the Italians, say, when war broke out?

ND: Well, as far as I know, the Italian to me, and to all around us our families, we treated them just like anybody, just as if nothing happened, because they really, they were Australianised there, that’s to me, that’s my interpretation. No, they didn’t…during the war when the Genovis’s, there was Frank Genovisi, I think there was Tony, but I think there was Frank came out and, oh, Frank must have come out just prior to Italy coming into the war, because Frank used to work up with Governor Cockman at Yanchep and I used to bring, call into the Italian’s shops there and bring Frank’s stores out. Frank couldn’t speak a word of English and I couldn’t’ speak a word of Italian but somehow we used to seem to convey the message to one another, you know. But I treated him like our own and he treated, you know, there was no animosity amongst the Italians as far as I was concerned in Wanneroo. No way, no.

JB: What about lifestyles around Wanneroo. Did that change much during the war?

ND: Well, I dunno. As I say, the first 18 months, things didn’t seem to change, you know, they didn’t. I mean they had their dances and collected funds and everybody went about their work as if… it’s before the Japs anyway, as if it’s the war was too far away, it’s not affecting us.

JB: What about petrol rationing?

ND: Well, yes, petrol rationing did come in and I know I had an old Pontiac utility, it was petrol. When petrol rationing did come in, I think they gave me about, I think it’s about, 15 or 20 gallons of petrol to do for a month to do Perth to Yanchep, that’s at least 60 or 70 miles every day and within a fortnight, I mean, I’d be out of petrol, you know. And I would have to go to the Rationing Board and ask for more. But one time I went in there and he says to me ‘Well,’ he says. ‘No more for you.’ he says ‘You’ve got to put a gas producer on.’ You know, those old big charcoal burning things, if you run out of charcoal you’d have to go to a black stump and knock some charcoal off to throw in the… into the burner to get your fuel. But anyway, I went into the Rationing Board and he said ‘Well, there’s no more petrol for you until the beginning of the next month,’ he said, ‘You’ve had your quota.’ I said, ‘Oh well, that’s lovely.’ So I marched up to the Commissioner of Mails, just can’t recollect his name now, and introduced myself and he says ‘What can I do you for you?’ and I says ‘After this week’ (this was on a Wednesday), I says ‘After Friday,’ I says ‘There will be no more mail delivery in Wanneroo.’ He says ‘What do you mean, you’ve got a contract.’ ‘Well,’ I said ‘I’ve got no petrol,’ I said ‘The Rationing Board says no more, that’s it, you gotta put a gas producer,’ and I said to him ‘No way am I putting a gas producer on the old Pontiac.’ I said ‘It wouldn’t pull it, you know.’ And he said to me, ‘Leave it me,’ he says. ‘Call in and see me Friday afternoon.’ So I went and seen him Friday afternoon and he said ‘Go up to the Rationing Board and’ he said ‘There’ll be tickets for you there.’ So they give me more petrol tickets that I could ever wish to use. So that was the interfering from the Commissioner of Mail. So I had plenty of petrol but they didn’t want to give it to me but I did have plenty of petrol. You know, you’re talking about rations, they’d say ‘You got mates here and you got mates here and influence. I know there was one particular fellow out here, I won’t name him, he says to me ‘Norm, petrol rationing, I wouldn’t know what it meant.’ He said ‘When I was out I used to apply.’ Whether it was true or false I don’t know, but he said ‘I used to apply for more petrol,’ he says, ‘And just put a five pound note.’ he says, ‘In it, mention nothing about money, nothing,’ he said. But it used to come back, the tickets used to come back, so… You know, some people got petrol easier, others had to buy it.

JB: How did people react to essential services personnel, the ones that were kept home?

ND: Well, I think that they knew that, you know, especially a few of the young chaps who were in the market gardens producing. Used to say, ‘Well, good on you,’ you know. An army, you know, marches on its stomach, we would say, if you haven’t got a full stomach, well you’ve got no army. So, I think they more or less accepted that, you know, that was to be was to be. You know, everybody couldn’t go to the war, everybody couldn’t go to the navy or army or air force and somebody had to stop home, so they more or less accepted it, you know.

JB: What about army life, what was your reaction to the food and…?

ND: Well, I mean initially it was pretty bad, you know. Especially the dog biscuits and the egg powder - that used to be the worse of the lot, that egg powder. I think the old cooks, they didn’t know, they didn’t even know how to cook it anyway in the first place, but used the egg powder and the onion and I guarantee that there would be, I suppose, if a Unit was issued a tonne of egg powder a week, ⅞ of that tonne went down the bin, they just wouldn’t eat it - the troops wouldn’t eat it. Jam was one of the ingredients we’d say about food and that was apple jelly – one tin of apple jelly to 30 men, that’s what we used to have. It was made by Glass; I think Glass family in Osborne Park produced it. And apple jelly, it was more like apple water, you know. I said, one tin for 30 men, you know. But, I suppose you got used to it. The bully beef – good bully beef, you got used to bully beef and the old dog biscuit, yeah, yeah, yeah. But if we were near a bivouac near a town, say Moora or Dandaragan or Northam, we’d certainly get leave of a night and go and have a good feed, it used to cost all our wages to go and get a decent feed of a night. But we got by. Out in, coming back to when we was at Jurien Bay.

JB: Could you give us a bit of an idea of the training you received?

ND: Oh dear, oh the training. Yes, well as I say, knowing nothing about army life when we first went in, I think the first thing they done was to get you fit, PT, you know, it was PT, march here, march there, learning how to march and rifle drill, learning how to, you know, use the rifle etc.

JB: You mentioned before that ammunition was short; did you use live ammunition for your training? ND: Well, we did when we went on the range, at the rifle range, mainly at Swanbourne we used live ammunition, yes, for target shooting. But I mean that’s the only time we ever fired a live ammunition out of our rifle was at the Swanbourne Rifle Range.

JB: And how many bullets would they allocate you for that?

ND: Um, used to be two to each target, each range. So you’d shoot from 200 say, back to the 300, 400, 500 and 600 yard range and you were allowed two bullets to see if you could hit the target or not. But our unit, of course, comprised of a lot of country boys, mainly from Geraldton, the boys being in the country, I think, they could all use a rifle and, you know, they knew how to handle a rifle, they didn’t need that much training, you know. But the PT or the get fit part of it was the worst. We used to have to go out and march 20 mile a day, not 20 yards, it was 20 mile a day we had to walk. That’s with our packs on too. And of course when you’re on a route-march for 20 miles and, I think, the average step of the normal male is about 30 inches, and of course, me being 5’3”, I think my step’s about 24, you know. I was doing two steps to their one, you know. By the time 20 mile was up I thought I’d marched 120, you know. But the army life, the going in and your tent, I mean your board, was just floorboards and then they gave you a, what they call, the army, the old palliasse, that was your mattress and you had to go and fill that up with straw. If you put too much straw in it, you rolled off it but if you weren’t careful and didn’t get two stalks of oats crossed, you were right – they used to stick into your ribs if you got the straws crossed. But you got used to the sleeping on there, yeah. It was a bit tough after your feather bed mattress what you had at home. But I think we knew that army life would be, you’d have to rough it, and you more or less accepted it that was it, yeah.

JB: How about the officers?

ND: Oh, the officers, they were pretty good. Until when you first went in, that’s before the Japs came in, they were a bit arrogant, the beggars, they were masters and they let you know. But when the Japs came in and you never know that you might have been sent up in the front line within a couple of days, they more or less were one of the boys because they didn’t want to think that they would be leading, instead of getting a Jap’s bullet, they wouldn’t get one in their back if they didn’t treat the boys. But, as a whole they were Geraldton boys, our CO was a Geraldton man, fellow named McPherson. Nice fellows, you got to be honest, they were good. But they had a job to do, I mean you can imagine a battalion of men, some were pretty wild and they had to keep a bit of discipline on them.

I mean a lot of the… I think when I went in, every soul that was in my unit, they were called up, they were conscripted to go in, in the training, national service training. And some took exception of it, I know there was a, there was two of our cooks, they hated it, but one night they were talking about homosexuals, they were caught in the same bed. And of course they got kicked out of the army quite smartly; they took exception to the homosexuals in the army in those days anyway. Then there was another fella, he was always playing up, if they’d say fall, and he’d drop out or something like that. And then line up with on parade and one day there he was at the end of the rank and he just fired a bullet, right across the whole range, just because he wanted to get out of the army and they kicked him out too. There’s things that happened I suppose, going back, say 40 years or 50 years it’s hard to think of instances, you know. I remember one of the saddest incidents that did happen is when we were up at Jurien Bay coast patrol. The section that was 20 miles to the south of me. Of course they had two hours on and four hours off duty, like on the night duty and you had your own bullets and your rifle then, when you’re out on watch and of course when you came into the tent you had to unload your rifle. And I would say the poorest shot, he wouldn’t have been able to hit a paper bag if he was firing from inside it, he was that poor he just couldn’t hit anything. He couldn’t use a rifle. And of course they put him on guard and when he came off he unloaded his rifle and he slammed the bolt forward and he didn’t, the last bullet came out and a fella was just unlacing his shoes and he sat up and the bullet went through the back of his head: killed him instantly. I mean, that was the saddest thing that I heard in our unit and that bloke went off his head practically, who shot him. And he wouldn’t have been able to hit a haystack, he was a poor shot and yet, you know that’s circumstances and that’s fate for you, you know. That was the saddest part of what I can recollect in my …

JB: How did your family cope financially with your absence, Norm?

ND: Well, as I say, I used to live at home with Mum and I used to pay my board and of course when I went in the army, I mean the other boys had the dairy and of course they probably supplemented her income from the dairy because I couldn’t. We were only on a about a shilling a day or something, you know. You never had enough to just send home so she would have had to cope, they coped alright but the whole family, I mean I suppose in our early days we were that poor but we coped somehow. So that’s it, yeah.

JB: And when you had to get rid of your poultry farm, how did you do that?

ND: Well, I… the poultry I was right up to the morning I went in it, the army, I fed my poultry and then I said to the family ‘Well, you’ll have to look after them,’ and that’s it, I lost them and I don’t know where they went to, from that day to this. As they got older they died off and that was it, yeah. When I came out the army after about three years there was no poultry there, no. JB: They were egg producing chooks?

ND: Egg producing, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.

JB: What about your job, was that held in abeyance for you?

ND: No, I was a mail contract and that was it. No, when I came out the army I went into the dairy with the brothers and helped them out, yeah.

JB: Let’s come back to your foot now.

ND: Oh dear. Yes, well I mean as I say I broke, put my foot down the old rabbit warren and broke my ankle and anyway I… and it swelled up like a football and they put me in an ambulance and took me to, I think there is a farmhouse, I wouldn’t know the name of the farmer but it was a fairly big homestead there at Walebing and the army did confiscate that for the hospital for any of the troops that got sick. And they put me there and they wrapped my foot up in bandage etc and they left it there for about a week. And I think I had more than one packet of Bex a night to stop the pain. But anyway I was in… bandaged up for about a week and they took it off and my foot was as black as boot polish and he said ‘Oh well, I think we better send you into Moora and have it x-rayed.’ So they sent me into Moora Hospital and had it x-rayed and the lower end of the ankle was, the bone, was just apart. He said ‘Oh crikey, you’ve had a break,’ he said ‘The bone’s come apart.’ So he shoved me in plaster and I was there for about a week then they put me on a train, a hospital train and brought me down to, oh I think it was Guildford Grammar School there in Guildford, and they had confiscated that, the second AGH Hospital. And I was there for about a week and had it x-rayed again and the crack was still here and he said ‘Oh well, we’ll plaster it again and we’ll shoot you off to convalescent depot down at Narrogin’. And I was down there for about, I suppose, for about 12 weeks and my foot was still in plaster for 12 weeks. Anyway, they took it out of plaster and my foot was like a broomstick, it was that… lost all the flesh off it because it was encased in plaster so long. And then they shifted me from, I think I was down there for about 12 weeks and I got sick of sitting around and I asked them could they give me a job in their office in the order room. Which I did, I went in there and helped them with their paperwork and then they suddenly got a brainwave, they sent me up to the Repat Hospital up at Hollywood and then they put me through a medical board and they B classed me. They said ‘Oh well, no overseas for you but we won’t discharge you,’ so they sent me up to the 109 AGH up at Northam. And while I was up there they said ‘Oh well,’ me and all…there was umpteen other blokes from, NCOs from various units returned from overseas and they had ailments and we were…I was a Corporal at the time, and we were served as NCOs and they said ‘Oh well, we’ll put you through a NCO school.’ And heaven’s above, the same old thing, you know, drilling and pack drill and rifle drill and anyway we went through three weeks’ school there and I was fortunate or unfortunate, I topped school - 94% - NCO school. And then after that the Adjunct of 109 Convalescent Depot says ‘We might have a position for you in the 109 AGH which is in the office helping us out.’ he says.

JB: Can I just ask you Norm, what does AGH stand for?

ND: Australian General Hospital, yeah.

ND: And he said ‘How do you feel about it?’ You know, asking me, how do I feel about it, you know. And I said ‘You’re the boss, I do what I’m told when I’m in the army.’ ‘Well,’ he says ‘We want you up in the AGH to help us out there in the office.’ So that’s where they put me up there and they give me another rank, they made me a Sergeant. Yeah, well my duty was there as… I mean, you can imagine with a convalescent depot, I mean, there’s sick troops coming in, sick troops going and some troops are allocated to no duty, some are light duty, some are heavy duty, some are for guards. Well, when I went there the various sergeants in charge of squads, so there was one in charge of a squad that had no duties, they would have to come on parade every morning and he would have 50 on his board of who was supposed to be there, but he’d only have 20, you know. And they’d been transferred to a light duty and they’d have mucked up, I think they had…and all their records they had about 500 men in records, but they only had about 400 there, you know. They were lost, they didn’t know whether they were on light duty, heavy duty or… and that was my job to try and sort them all out and find every soldier and where he was allocated in the 109 Convalescent Depot and that’s what my job and I… I did, I sorted it out. How I done it, I don’t know but it was just sorted out.

JB: And how long were you there, Norm?

ND: Oh crikies. Now, I suppose I was there 12 months, yeah, yeah. Oh you see a lot of sights coming through, you know, poor beggars with one leg and some no legs, you know, no it was pitiful, you know, some. Yes, but that was war.

JB: These were soldiers that had been sent back from overseas?

ND: That it … been sent back from overseas, yeah, yeah. Sent back from overseas, all different ones who had been training and, you know, didn’t even get overseas like me, you know, they got hurt or something, yeah, you know. Oh there was many a soldier that got hurt and got killed but never went outside their district practically, because if they had exercises you might have an exercise if, say a couple of thousand men, they used to budget for ten or a dozen casualties, that’s the name of the game, you know. With live ammunition and flying around. I know when I was down at the, before I broke my ankle, when I was down at Narrogin, that’s where I went to the NCA School down there, and crikies, we’d be advancing on a supposed enemy position and they’d be behind you with a, not a Bren gun, a Bren machine gun fires pretty straight, but the old Vickers machine gun and the Vickers they used to spray them all around like a grain of wheat and they were firing there and you’d hear the booms, zip zip zipping past your ear. That was just in a training exercise so you can imagine that some did get hit and some did get injured in those exercises, and they were some of the ones who used to come through the convalescent depot too, yeah.

JB: Where were you at the end of the war?

ND: Well, at the end of the war I came home. I came home before it finished, because I was sick of sitting around doing nothing, you know. Just sitting up there, you know, well I thought I was doing nothing in office, and I wasn’t contributing much to the war effort, you know, so they were short of one in the dairy and I applied and they let me out about six months before the end of the war. It was nearly all over, the Germans had given in and it was… it was only a matter of sorting out the Japs before, yeah.

JB: And what was the general reaction to the end of the war?

ND: Well, I think it really was more relief, you know. People didn’t celebrate. We had a Victory Ball in Wanneroo but people didn’t celebrate. I joined the… I was in the Victory Parade in Perth but apart from that, the people in Wanneroo more or less I think they were relieved more so than… I think their concern was for the POWs who were in Japan, you know, because we knew different ones who were there – POWs – and we wanted to see them home, you know. Some who left Wanneroo, went away from Wanneroo, there’s three boys didn’t come home, you know. They were in the Second Fourth Machine Gunners and they lost their lives. But there was a couple in Wanneroo who, you know, and I think that’s what was the concern of the people you know, because when, I think in those days in Wanneroo, I think you’re a friend of all and all were friends, you know. So they were more worried about the condition of those troops, like. I think they were glad for them more so. But, no there wasn’t any great celebrations; I think more relief than celebrations, yeah.

JB: Well, settling back into civvy life, how did you go?

ND: Well, I got to be quite honest. It took me about six months. Some of them were rough… in the army they were rough coves, but they were good mates and I missed them. I missed them more so than - the mates, more so I did the … that was the biggest part of the army that I did miss, was the mateship, you know. You didn’t think if people, let’s say, oh you know you’re a mate for a male when you, you know, they wouldn’t’ believe you, but when you live with them for about three years, you do miss them, yes. I did miss them anyway.

JB: Could you tell us a bit about your job at the dairy when you came back?

ND: Oh, well yes, it was a… I suppose… it was a bit hard other than army life After being in the army, you know, I think it softened you up a bit, unless you’re out actually in the front line and coming back into the end of the dairy it was a bit hard to take but we battled through and got by. Rationing, I think, was tea and sugar mainly. Butter, we didn’t worry about butter, we made our own if we were short. But, I think in our family, I mean there was quite a, what five or six living in the one home and we used to pool our ration tickets and we got by and we didn’t notice really the tea and sugar ration, I love my tea but I even went without it for some. No, the… butter was say, dairy it. I enjoyed it, but I had itchy feet and funny thing I seemed to like poultry and I thought, oh crikies, I think it’s about 12 months after, I said ‘Oh I think I’ll go out on my own with my poultry.’ So I built a shed to get my day old chicks and I got 1,000 of them. Then I had to build the sheds, I mean you could keep them in this rearing pen for about a fortnight and I’d already started to build the sheds but I wanted the iron to cover the roof and I went into the WA Salvage, they were there near the Metropolitan Markets, and I said ‘I want 70 sheets of iron for my poultry.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘Have you got a permit?’ I said ‘What do you mean, permit?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You gotta have a permit to… before we can supply you with iron.’ He said, ‘It’s still rationed you know.’ Rationing Board controlled it. He said ‘You’ll have to fill in an application.’ I said, ‘Crikies, my chooks they’re nearly ready to go in the shed.’ ‘Oh well,’ he said ‘That’s it; I can’t do anything about it you know.’ So anyway he give me a form to fill in and he said ‘I’ll send it away to the Rationing Board’ and says ‘Come back in a couple of days.’ Anyway I goes back and he said, ‘Yes, you’re ok.’ he said. ‘There’s Priority 3.’ or something. He says ‘As soon as it’s ready I’ll let you know.’ So I waited a week and I went back to see him and I said ‘That iron, you know, I’m desperate, I’m waiting for it.’ He said ‘Oh, wait a minute now.’ A file of applications on a peg there and he looked though it and mine was right down the bottom. I said ‘You can’t tell me that there hasn’t been anybody else put in application for iron in the last fortnight.’ I says, ‘Mine down at the bottom.’ And he pulled it off, he said ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘The reason why yours is there,’ he said, ‘Is Priority 3.’ He said, ‘If I had a thousand tonne I couldn’t supply it to you.’ I said ‘What the blazes have they given me Priority 3 for you know it’s for poultry.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘That’s to get rid of you, that’s all.’ I said ‘This is lovely, this is,’ I says. ‘Where do I go now?’ He said ‘Oh well, the Department of Redevelopment and Construction, they handle all that now.’ I said ‘Well where the hell?’ Up in … or some one of the insurance buildings in the Terrace. So, I bowls up to there and walks in and there was two fellas sitting at the desk and they says ‘And what can we do for you?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve come in here about this iron for me, you know, poultry.’ And I said ‘I’ve been given Priority 3 and the supplier said if they had a thousand tonne they couldn’t supply them and I said what are you trying to do to me?’ and you know. He said, you know, I told him what I wanted. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We’ve got nothing for you.’ Just like that, one of the fellows in the Research and Development. I said ‘You mean to say you’ve got no iron?’ He said ‘That’s right.’ I said ‘It’s come to a nice kettle of fish hasn’t it?’ He says ‘What do you mean?’ I says ‘Supposedly enemies we’re at war with them.’ I said ‘I won’t mention him,’ I said. ‘Next door to me,’ I said, ‘He’s just built a big brand new shed.’ I says, ‘He’s a market gardener and he got it,’ but I says ‘Good luck to him he got it,’ but I says, ‘I know how he got it because he told me how he got it.’ I said ‘I would have liked to known the fellow who he gave it to, who paid,’ I said ‘Because I’d put him in tomorrow,’ I said ‘I’d put him in tomorrow.’ like that. And he said ‘Oh, now don’t get annoyed, don’t get annoyed,’ he said, ‘Now how much do you want?’ I told him. Anyway he said ‘Would asbestos do you?’ I said ‘I don’t care what you give me as long as I cover the sheds.’ And he rang through, he said ‘Oh, take your truck out to the asbestos place there over the causeway in Vic Park,’ he says, ‘And go and get as much as you want.’ But they didn’t have anything for me when I first applied.

ND: Once I got the asbestos covering home I had to… it didn’t take me too long to put the roof on because the chickens were just about squashing one another in the one and only shed that I did have them in and there were a thousand of them in that one shed. But, anyway that was the beginning of my poultry farming excursion.

ND: Not long after that I got married. Yes, I got married but the chooks started producing their eggs and of course in the production of eggs you have small ones, you had double yolkers, you have cracked ones and I used to take a few of the eggs around to the various market gardeners and get all the green feed there, rejected cabbage, cauli, lettuce. And I suppose I fed my poultry on 60% of green stuff.

End of Disc 1

Start of Disc 2

JB: This is tape 2 of the interview for Australia Remembers with Norm Duffy.

ND: Yes, well after the finish of the war, there was five that I know who did volunteer, or enlist, from Wanneroo, that was Bob Kruger. Unfortunately the other three chaps who enlisted from Wanneroo that was Bill and Lacey Gibbs and Barney Facey, they lost their lives in the Jap invasion of Singapore. Barney, I believe, was blown up in Singapore, who incidentally was the son of A.B., old Bert Facey, who used to drive the trucks for the Coopers Lime kiln when they were burning lime at Quinns Rocks, old Bert Facey, and he was the author of the book ‘Fortunate Life’ and Barney was his son. Jimmy and Lacey, two finer young chaps you couldn’t wish to meet, from an old Wanneroo family, the Gibbs’ family. And they endured the work of the, on the, Burma Railway with the Japs and after the Burma railway was finished, the Japs they were going to transfer some of the Australian troops to another prisoner of war camp in Japan, and of course they were all going by ship and that ship was torpedoed by a Yankee submarine and that’s where young Billy and Lacey they lost their lives on that prisoner of war ship that was sunk by the Americans. And that was another tragedy of the war, you know. But it was something that happens in war, and you know, they paid the supreme sacrifice and I met a fellow after the war, he was a foreman in the building of state housing homes in Nollamara and he’s a chap named Horrie Bunker and we get talking and he said he was in the 2nd Fourth Machine Gunners and he’s a prisoner of war and talking around the various troops in his unit and I said ‘Did you happen to know Billy and Lacey Gibbs from Wanneroo?’ He says ‘Norm, they were in my section.’ He said ‘They were on the same raft that I was on when, after the Japs sunk the prisoner of war ship.’ He said ‘They just slightly drifted off the raft one night.’ he says, ‘They said they couldn’t take anymore.’ So that was the sad part of their army life, yeah their army career, well their army, you know, prisoner of war.

JB: What about clothes rationing, Norm?

ND: Oh well, of course that was the first thing I wanted when I came out the army, was a few civvy clothes. But no problems there, you just went in and bought what fitted you and I went and got measured for a suit, I think a fellow named Bert Henkel measured for me, that was about a fortnight after I got out of the army, which I made the biggest mistake. You wouldn’t believe it, because in the army instead of me weighing a standard weight of 5’ 3” of about 10 stone, I was about 14. I mean I had a girth on me like a tyre and of course I went and got measured for a suit and it fitted me alright then, after about six months, you could have wrapped it around me, I could have had two suits out of it. I lost all my army fat.

JB: So you never really had much trouble with rationing?

ND: No I never, not in regard to clothes. All you needed was money to buy them. And of course we didn’t get paid that much in the army; you weren’t wealthy when you came out. But as far as clothes go, no I didn’t feel the wrath of clothes rationing.

JB: What about community groups? ND: Well yes, things, I dare say of course being in the army you, you know, you lost touch with the various sporting or community groups. Before the war we only had tennis but after the war we got together and formed our tennis and we went up, used to go up every Sunday playing tennis and then the Agriculture Society was formed, the Football Club we formed them. Going back to the football for a start, we played them at where the Wanneroo Show Ground is now, well it still is a football I hope, but that’s where we used to play. But before every football season started in the winter we used to have to up with our axes and our spades and cut the saplings down to clear the ground. Oh yes, because during… in between football and the intermission, the saplings and the jarrah saplings and red gum saplings we used to have to go and clear it. But then the Agriculture Society, they started up and the same thing there, it was more or less a dust bowl, you know, and we wanted something better, so the Agriculture Society they handed the show grounds over to the Road Board, the Wanneroo Road Board, because they never had any money to develop it so they more or less handed over to the Agriculture… ah the Agriculture side more or less handed over to the Road Board. And then we asked them would they do something about it, it used to be uphill. It was alright when you’re kicking down south because it was downhill, but when you’re kicking the football north, you had to go uphill. But anyway the Road Board, they brought in a bulldozer and they levelled it all off, as the same level as today. And the Wanneroo Football Club, they transferred their outings down to Backshall Place, just where there used to be Les Turner’s poultry farm and Tony Allia where they’re all living now; all that flat was our football field while they levelled off the showgrounds. Well when they levelled off the showgrounds, the Road Board, all the members said well that’s it. You know, if you wanted anything further you’ve got to develop it yourself. So, what happened? I thing we called a Busy Bee and one Saturday and there was 78 men turned up at the Busy Bee. We grassed that, some had trucks, they went down along the swamp water and they dug up couch, they brought the couch back, they spread it. Some had little market garden rotary hoes and they chopped the couch in, and that showground as today was planted in one day by 78 volunteers plus. Tony Villanova had a saw mill up at, and this is honest truth, I’m not plugging for anybody, but Tony Villanova had a saw mill up at Pinjar. Tony donated all the timber to go right around the arena and that was put up all in one day, the same day. But that was alright until the summertime come, there’s then no water. And old Bill Mowatt who was President of the Wanneroo Agriculture Society, and at the meantime I was one of the fools, I suppose, if you can call us that, who was elected to the Wanneroo Road Board, I got on the council. And Bill Mowatt says to me ‘Christ, Duffy, if you can get some, the material,’ he says, ‘We’ll put it down, we’ll lay it.’ So I went around to the…and there was some old… I don’t know... they didn’t like development, some of them, some of the old heads in the Road Board and they said ‘We’re not going to allocate, or vote, for any money to be spent on, you know, we’ve done enough now there, your level off, it’ll grow without water,’ that’s what they say, the old fellas. But anyway, to cut a long story short, there was nine members in that Road Board. And whether I had done a bit of skulduggery or not, but I went around too and I got four of them to support me, for us to purchase, the Board, to purchase the material for irrigating the showground.

JB: What would year would that have been Norm?

ND: That would have been 1950, well I was in the Road 1953, round about ’53. Early fifties. And one Saturday afternoon old Bill Mowatt, he was the President the Agricultural Society and a fellow named Tom Hogan from Baralindens they were suppliers of irrigation material and there were other suppliers in, but he was one who came to mind and we got him to come out on one Saturday afternoon. Old Bill Mowatt and I, we went up there and we measured everything and worked out how much material we had to irrigate the showground and to put down the well and the pump and the motor and everything and the total sum came to 900 pounds. And I said, ‘Oh right, next road, next meeting I’ll put it to them.’ And lo and behold, two who were going to support me they didn’t turn up, they went with the trots at Northam. And anyway I says to one of the members ‘Anyway, I don’t care, I’m going to put it you know.’ So I put it that the Road Board purchase this material so we could irrigate the showground. And they put it to the vote, and there was three, he was always, the Chairman was always dead against it, he said, ‘No that’s it.’ But he put it to the vote and it was three for and three against. And he was the Chairman, ‘Well, he said, ‘It looks like I have the casting vote, doesn’t it, looks like ya get it or ya don’t.’ And I said ‘Well that’s what it works out about.’ And he said ‘Well look, I know Norm.’ he said, ‘I know we’ve got to supply amenities for the youngsters at Wanneroo to keep them here,’ he said ‘And I think the Showground is one of the meeting place for youngsters, whether it be football or tennis or foot running or you name it,’ he says. ‘And Norm’s put a lot of work in to this.’ He said ‘I’m going to support Norm’s motion.’ And that’s how we got the material purchased by through Norm Duffy. And we got all the material out one Saturday, Bill Mowatt – he’s dead and gone now – Paddy Gibbs and me sunk those Hume pipes that are now on the showground, we put them down on one day. And Paddy Gibbs, he’s in the Masonic Village out at Dianella and he could back me up on that. And that’s how the irrigation of the Wanneroo Showgrounds come about.

JB: What about the War Memorial?

ND: Well, the War Memorial as it is now, it was originally on the corner of Wanneroo Road and Dundebar Road that was near the old school on that corner. Because we used to go down every Anzac Memorial Day and have our service there. But after I think the, I just can’t recollect what year it was, but it must have been in the sixties, that the Wanneroo Shire, they built their shire offices on the West side of Wanneroo Road, on the corner I think, on the corner of Crisafulli Avenue and Wanneroo Road. I think the Tourist Bureau or some other organisation have got that now and they shifted the War Memorial from up the corner of Dundebar Road to down to there. It was there for a few years and after they did build the present Wanneroo Civic Centre, the War Memorial was transferred up to the, where at its present site. And the names of the, I think, the Gibbs’ boys and the Facey boys name were put on there and dedicated, you know, the memory of their service and I was at that dedication and old man Facey was out there too – Barney’s father. Quite a moving day. But that is the history of the memorial, yes.

JB: And how do you feel about the war now, 50 years on?

ND: Well, I just think it was… 50 years on… I just think it was to no avail really, because there’s a lot of lives lost and you know, there’s really no peace, really there’s no peace, you know, I don’t think… it could break out tomorrow. Really, you know, I think there’s a lot of youngsters got sacrificed, you’re only got to look at the, you know, war memorials and see the names of… you go up around the country, there’s thousands of young, good young country, not only country but city people, you know, lives have lost, you know lost. And now they’re still bickering at one another, they can’t, you know. And it’s not only bickering amongst nations but its bickering amongst ourselves, you know. We can’t seem to agree amongst ourselves on a lot of things and I always say if we can’t agree amongst ourselves how can we expect nations to agree? Yes, I suppose on reflection, I said well, wars are no avail. You know, when you stop and think, what would have … I mean we have a … I suppose we do have… we can get up and say what we want to say now without being arrested or it is … we have a certain amount of freedom. Would we have had it if the Japs had come? I don’t think we would have, you know, because no. But there’s one thing that always bugs me really, is if there’s an American warship comes into Fremantle you have protesters. ‘Keep Them Out, the Yanks’. Look, only for the Americans, only for the Americans you and I wouldn’t be sitting here today. The Americans saved Australia because I know, I was there, I know what we had – we had nothing. The Japs could have walked in tomorrow, or the proverbial tomorrow. They could walk in any day at all over the Yanks. And there was no more ‘please, soldier’, when I see the Yanks ships and their aircraft carriers pull into Fremantle because they were our saviours and it just bugs me when people run them down. I mean they might have read that the American troops, they had plenty of money, they went around and splashed around their hundred dollars where we had our 10 cents, you know. And of course that’s what a lot of the Australian troops didn’t like them because it wasn’t that they didn’t like them as men, it was because they didn’t like the amount of money that they were splashing around and taking their sheilas off them.

JB: Thank you very much for sharing your memories with us Norm. We really appreciate your time and we hope it brought back some pleasant moments for you.

ND: Well, it’s quite a pleasure. I mean, after 50 years the things that you forget about, probably tomorrow when I might just think about what I said, something else will come to me. But it’s been quite a pleasure, Joan. Quite a pleasure working with you

JB: Thank you.

End of recording

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