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Transcript of Oral History Recording TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL HISTORY RECORDING Accession number S00930 Title (20633) Henry, Leon Simon David (Sergeant) Interviewer Stokes, Edward Place made Not stated Date made 9 May 1990 Description Leon Simon David Henry as a sergeant, 3 Squadron RAAF, interviewed by Edward Stokes for The Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia in the War of 1939- 1945 LEON HENRY Page 2 of 18 Disclaimer The Australian War Memorial is not responsible either for the accuracy of matters discussed or opinions expressed by speakers, which are for the reader to judge. Transcript methodology Please note that the printed word can never fully convey all the meaning of speech, and may lead to misinterpretation. Readers concerned with the expressive elements of speech should refer to the audio record. It is strongly recommended that readers listen to the sound recording whilst reading the transcript, at least in part, or for critical sections. Readers of this transcript of interview should bear in mind that it is a verbatim transcript of the spoken word and reflects the informal conversational style that is inherent in oral records. Unless indicated, the names of places and people are as spoken, regardless of whether this is formally correct or not – e.g. ‘world war two’ (as spoken) would not be changed in transcription to ‘second world war’ (the official conflict term). A few changes or additions may be made by the transcriber or proof-reader. Such changes are usually indicated by square brackets, thus: [ ] to clearly indicate a difference between the sound record and the transcript. Three dots (…) or a double dash (- -) indicate an unfinished sentence. Copyright Copyright in this transcript, and the sound recording from which it was made, is usually owned by the Australian War Memorial, often jointly with the donors. Any request to use of the transcript, outside the purposes of research and study, should be addressed to: Australian War Memorial GPO Box 345 CANBERRA ACT 2601 LEON HENRY Page 3 of 18 BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE A. Identification: This is Edward Stokes with Leon Henry, Squadron 3, tape 1, side 1. Leon, could we perhaps just begin by asking you when and where you were born, please? Born in Mosman in, 9th November 1915, overlooking the oval. Right, well, it would be very different to Mosman today. Did you grow up in Sydney? Yes, I was in Mosman until I was about ten and then there was a break in the family fortunes and we moved over to the eastern suburbs, Woollahra and then to Kings Cross finally. And I was living there when I enlisted. That break in the family fortunes was that related to the depression? No. Right. Well, we'll leave that. Your schooling: where did you go to school and what age did you continue to? Oh well, leaving aside the primary school; I went to Sydney High School then I did three years there. Then, because of the financial situation I had to give that up so I completed a matriculation at - by night school. That must have been pretty tough. I don't recall it as being tough except that the last two years were virtually useless. I got through the matriculation on what I'd remembered from the Intermediate. Then I did a couple of years night school at Sydney University and that didn't work very well either, I didn't have the back-up that I needed to be successful there, so that was abandoned after two years. It came in handy later. Just for the record, I understand after the war you did go back to university and complete a degree. Oh, that was much later. That was after I came to Canberra which was in 1967, I started a degree and fortunately finished it. All that I learned from that was how little I know. Well, I suppose that's the most important thing for anybody to learn; not everybody does I guess. Going back to the time in Sydney, the period before the war, what work were you doing? Well, mostly different clerical work. My first job, first decent job was with Saunders, the jewellers, as a customs clerk. And then I had a little bit of time out of work and then I went to work for a firm manufacturing steel windows, the name of J Connolly Proprietary Limited. LEON HENRY Page 4 of 18 And it was there you were working, I think, when war broke out? No. No, there was a division in the firm and so the bloke - there were two brothers and I was working as probably personal assistant to one of them - and they split up and the chap I was with went out on his own and he took me with him. And the day we were due to start war was declared. So there was never any chance that the business was going to succeed; it folded after about twelve months and the boss went into the air force and I followed him shortly afterwards. Quite an important point I think that you were making before was that you didn't have much practical, manual experience as a fitter but you had fairly wide experience in the ordering of supplies and so on. Well, that's right because of the fact that I was the, I suppose, the buying clerk as well as all the other things in the office. I used to read catalogues and so forth and I knew sizes and I knew a lot of things that are relevant to a fitter which your average fitter on the bench wouldn't be bothered with; and so that came in very handy when I ... on the theoretical side. Something I hadn't thought of but immediately after I joined the air force I was given an interview for a job I'd applied for with the government which was concerned impounding machinery for factories and I said, 'Well, I can't do that, I'm in the air force'. And the bloke said, 'Don't worry about that, we'll soon get you out'. And another one of the silly things that I've said in my life, I said, 'No, I'll stick with the boys'. (5.00) Right. Just going back in time a little bit before the war. The general tradition of the Australians in the first war, the ANZACs - what they'd achieved in the, perhaps some might think somewhat nationalistic sentiments involved in it - was that very much part of your childhood or not? Well, I had some uncles on my mother's side who were all ex-ser.... Well all of those that were of serving age, two of them lost legs and one got pretty badly shot up, but no, I don't think .... What I have to say is this: I was brought up in the Jewish faith and the Jewish community in Sydney was more British than the British at that time, and so you could say I was as patriotic as the next one. Right. One other thing, too, the general political developments in Europe running up to the outbreak of war, in other words the rise to power of Hitler and so on, was that something that you and people you mixed with were conscious of, or not? I think we were very conscious of it, but I think pretty well everybody in my generation had the expectation I suppose from 1935 onwards that yes, there was going to be a war, and yes, there were going to be ... we were going to be part of it. In the Jewish people you no doubt mixed with, was there any sense of quite how far that side of things might go? I wasn't aware of it. I suppose we regarded ourselves as pretty much the same as any other Australian; there's been very little anti-Semitic prejudice in Australia. There was a little bit more in those days but there was never anything vicious about it; we were different, that's about all. LEON HENRY Page 5 of 18 Right. Well, let's move on. You signed up I think late 1940, until then this industry had been a protected job and so on. January '41 you were called up, four weeks rookie training at Richmond, what's your first recollection of the air force? Well, its symbolic, you know, you're called in, 'Come in and bring a cut lunch and ...' Is that really? A cut lunch? [Laughs.] Yes, yes. And you're processed and they put us in the bus and they took it out to Richmond. And the thing that I can remember very clearly is you go through the main gate there and there's a bunch of blokes who've got nothing much to do saying, 'You'll be sorry'. I've said it myself recently for various reasons. I suppose they - giving them something to do. Anyway the rookie's training I assume that was the sort of basic structure of the air force plus no doubt a good deal of parade ground bashing. Is that your memory or not? It was the same as any serviceman, it was all parade ground bashing, there was no air force stuff in it at all. You were learned to march, you learnt to salute, you learnt to march in formation. We did a little bit of route marching, not too much. We ate very well. We slept on boards with palliasses. And we used to do guard duty.
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