NOT TO BE SHOT AT OR EXPORTED An Airman’s L e tte rs Home 1942-1945 WINNER OF THE 1994 HERITAGE AWARD NOT TO BE SHOT AT OR EXPORTED Other titles in this series: NOT TO BE Secret Action o f 305 Smith & Coghlan SHOT AT Winner of the 1988 Heritage Award The RAAF Mirage Story OR EXPORTED Compiled by Wing Commander M.R. Susans An Airman’s Letters Home 1942-1945 Winner of the 1989 Heritage Award LESLIE HAROLD SULLIVAN Alfresco Flight — The RAAF Antarctic Experience David Wilson Winner of the 1990 Heritage Award Edge o f Centre — The eventful life of Group Captain Gerald Packer Chris Coulthard-Clark Winner of the 1991 Heritage Award Beaufighters over New Guinea — No.30 Squadron RAAF 1942-1943 George Turnbull Dick Winner of the 1992 Heritage Award Defeat to Victory — No.453 Squadron RAAF John Bennett Winner of the 1993 Heritage Award Royal Australian Air Force M useum An occasional series Number 7 This book is dedicated to my parents Harold Macleay Sullivan (1891-1956) and First published in 1995 by Nina Sarah Sullivan (1898-1980). Royal Australian Air Force Museum RAAF Williams Point Cook, Vic., 3027, Australia Copyright © Royal Australian Air Force Museum Production by Sylvana Scannapiego, Island Graphics Cover and text design by David Constable Edited by Ogma Writers & Editors Typeset in 11/12 pt Sabon Printed in Australia by Impact Printing, Melbourne All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cataloguing-in-publication information Sullivan, Leslie, 1924- Not to be shot at or exported. Includes index. ISBN 0 642 20394 6. 1. Sullivan, Leslie, 1924---- Correspondence. 2. Australia. Royal Australian Air Force — Bibliography. 3. World War, 1939-1945 — Aerial operations, Australian. 4. Air pilots, Military — Australia — Correspondence. 5. World War, 1939-1945 — Personal narratives, Australian. I. Royal Australian Air Force Museum. II. Title. 940.544994 ABOUT THE AUTHOR CONTENTS Les Sullivan was 18 when, after one week as a primary school teacher, he enlisted in the RAAF as a technical Acknowledgements ix trainee. From 1942-45 he served as a flight rigger and airframe fitter at various training and operational units in Author’s Note xi Australia. He was discharged in September 1945 and resumed his Introduction xiii teaching career. In 1950 he graduated from University of 1 Those magnificent men 1 Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts Degree after three years as an evening student. 2 Consequently Australia is also at war 14 February 1952 saw him back in the RAAF as an Edu­ cation Officer in which category he served in a wide variety 3 You’ll be sorry! 25 of appointments, including two years on exchange duty with the Royal Air Force. 4 A long way from home 34 Les retired from the RAAF in 1974 with the rank of Wing Commander, his last appointment being Staff Officer 5 A garden city full of Yanks 60 Ground Training at Headquarters Support Command. From 1974-86 he was an Educational Counsellor at the Royal 6 The lights are on again in Melbourne 76 Melbourne Institute of Technology. In 1957 he married Joan Symons, a former wartime WAAAF and daughter of 7 Say buddy, what field is this? 92 Squadron Leader Bill Symons MBE RAAF (1924-50). They have two children, Bill and Faith. With Joan he now lives at 8 Just a great feeling of relief 125 Pambula Beach, NSW. Glossary 163 Appendix 1 No.3 School of Technical Training 166 Appendix 2 No.l Engineering School RAAF 170 Appendix 3 No.l Wireless Air Gunners School 176 Appendix 4 No.3 Wireless Air Gunners School 181 Appendix 5 No.41 Squadron RAAF 184 Bibliography 191 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It would have been impossible to write this book without the help of the following people, to whom I am deeply grateful: My late mother who kept my letters, and my father from whom I inherited a propensity to record events. The late Stan Arneil (One Man’s War and many other books) for his inspiration. Barbara Triggs, a fellow member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, for correcting and then transcribing my rough typescript on to a word processor. Stuart Pettigrew Design Pty Ltd, who prepared my original text and illustrations for entry in the RAAF Annual Heritage Awards. The late Air Commodore Rex Taylor CBE for his encouragement and advice over many years. David Wilson and Bob Piper of RAAF Historical Section, Russell Offices, Department of Defence, Canberra, ACT, for providing access to RAAF records. Wing Commander Jim de Bomford (Retd), RAAF Museum, Point Cook, Vic, for access to RAAF official photographs. Mr John Clifford, Corporate Services Manager, Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria, for copies of wartime photographs and access to RASV minute books. Royal NSW Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, North Rocks, NSW, for the photograph in Chapter 3. Members of Far South Coast Fellowship of Australian Writers for crit­ ical comments and suggestions. My mates on the courses and postings with whom I shared many of these experiences and in particular three of the best: Roy Partridge- Wall, Ray Hamilton and Jack Neuhaus. Some of you may read this book and remember when ... My wife and family, who on the many occasions when I reminisced, said, “Why don’t you write a book?” . Well, Joan, Bill and Faith, here it is. IX AUTHOR’S NOTE In my first letter to my parents following my enlistment in the RAAF on 13 October 1942,1 asked my mother to keep all my letters in a safe place. She did, and 50 years later I still have every one of them, together with some my parents wrote to me. When, in November 1980, The Australian newspaper invited letters describing a wartime Christmas, I submitted my letter home of 26 December 1942. It described how I spent my first Christmas away from home with the Smith family of Canterbury, Melbourne. The Australian published it as the best letter and this led, two months later, to myself and my wife sitting down to dinner with Mrs Smith and her family at the same table in the same room as I had all those years before. Ten years later The Australian repeated the exercise and I submitted a letter describing my last wartime Christmas Day at Cairns, Qld, which also was published. Since then, extracts have been published in other newspapers and magazines. When Australia Post invited letters which described aspects of the history of Melbourne for a display to mark the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of the city, I submitted extracts describing Melbourne in wartime through the eyes of an 18-year-old from the country. Australia Post, in returning them, wrote: Thank you for your “Marvellous Melbourne Letters”. They have been put to good use at a Psychiatric Hospital trying to jog the memories of the patients. They are a delight to read. Thank you for sharing them with us. I hope you too enjoy reading them, together with letters from my parents, extracts from my diary and historical sketches of the RAAF stations concerned. LES SULLIVAN Wing Commander RAAF (Retired) Pambula Beach NSW, November 1993 XI INTRODUCTION During World War II hundreds of thousands of Australian servicemen and women wrote millions of letters to their families, loved ones and friends. Some were long and detailed while others, like those from prisoners of war, sent through the Red Cross and received months and even years later, were impersonal lettergrams simply confirming that the writer was still alive at the time of writing. Censorship restricted what could be written about. So letters wryly told of the humorous side of service life, of mateship and of the inevitable “bullshit” and made light of danger, suffering and imminent death. Letter writing offered an escape from the monotony of service life, which was once aptly described as “months of utter boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror”. Although, as a member of the RAAF, I had volunteered to serve anywhere in the world, I never heard the proverbial “shot fired in anger” . I was never in a location where I could not go to a dance or a movie if I wanted to. We called ourselves “koalas” as, like that symbol, we felt we were Not to be Shot At or Exported. So my letters are not about war. Instead, they depict the maturing of a personality under the circumstances of the time; they give vignettes of cities and towns which played host to thousands of men and women thrust into their midst; they describe attitudes to US servicemen “over here, over paid and oversexed” but fighting in the common cause. Finally, they describe the largely unacknowledged contribu­ tion of tens of thousands of women and girls who manned the dozens of voluntary organisations which did so much to provide a few home comforts for those in the services. If nothing else, they describe from a personal viewpoint an era which, in a few more years, will be forgotten, using a medium which is, in this age of electronic communication, rapidly becoming a lost art — the personal hand-written letter. _________ CHAPTER ONE_________ Those magnificent men My First Flight I was eleven when I had my first aeroplane flight but I remember it as if it were only yesterday. It was in Charles Ulm’s Faith in Australia at Frogmore, a swampy area near the Macleay River, ten kilometres north-east of Kempsey, NSW.