TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL HISTORY RECORDING

Accession number S00540

Title (TX993 (T255532)) Holmes, Geoffrey Lewis (Corporal)

Interviewer Sprod, Michael

Place made Montrose TAS

Date made 9 March 1989

Description Geoffrey Lewis Holmes, Corporal 2/12th Battalion, interviewed by Michael Sprod for the Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia in the War of 1939–45

Discussing enlistment; 2/12 Battalion; army training; embarkation; shipboard activities; fighting in ; return to Australia; service in New Guinea; action at Milne Bay; attitudes to Japanese.

GEOFFREY HOLMES Page 2 of 34

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GEOFFREY HOLMES Page 3 of 34

TAPE 1 SIDE A

Tape Identification: This interview is being recorded for the Australian War Memorial Sound Archive of the Second World War. This is interview number five concerning the 2/12th Battalion of the AIF. The recording was made at Montrose, near Hobart, on 9th March 1989. The interviewer is Michael Sprod, and I'm talking to Geoffrey Holmes, formerly a corporal in the 2/12th Battalion.

Well, Mr Holmes, if we could begin with some of your personal details, about where you were born, and when, and your parents' occupations, and so forth.

I was born in Burnie, according to the records on 2lst January 1921. My father was with the Hydro Electric Commission, and we came back, oh, before I can remember, to down south and we went to Broadmarsh. And my father was still with the Commission, but we had a farm and an orchard as well, in Broadmarsh. So that was my early life. I went to school at Broadmarsh State School for a start, and then I went to Clemes College in Hobart as a boarder.

As a boarder?

Yes.

So, your father was reasonably well off, then?

Oh, yes, he was ... well, our orchard was one of the biggest in the district, and of course he was a patrolman on the ... of the ... on the power lines. So we weren't ... We went through the depression, but I don't remember much about that, except that we had people working for us, clearing land and that sort of thing. That was about ...

Was that government assisted?

I don't know if it was government assisted or not, but I think they were clearing it for about five pounds an acre, in those days, which I suppose was quite a bit of money. But I wou