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2/2 COMMiANDO

COURIER ..?;~

(Registered at the G.P.O. Perth, for transmission by post as a periodical)(Address All Association Correspondence to Box Tl646, G.P.O., Perth)

Vol.ZO. No. 190. FEBBRUARY, 1966 PrIce Ic

~'it,nlllTHE GREAT SAFARI

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The time has come the walrus said, to speak of many things!One of the many things is our projected Great Safari! This is to be a

fact! The number of people in W.A. who have already evinced considerableinterest in the project is truly gratifying. The big thing now is to rapidlydecide on the actual month or months in 1968 when the Safari will take placeto enable those who intend to take part a chance to save towards the verynecessary expenses. .

In this issue of the "Courier" will appear a questionaire which you arerequested to fill in and return to Box T1646, G.P.O., Perth, or to yourState Branch as soon a spossible. From your answers to the questions posedyour organisers will be able. to get the general picture' and get on with thejob of making this venture tick.

Elsewhere in this issue is a very long article by Harry Sproxton who hasrecently done a trip via the Safari route and it is most enlightening. Harryassures me that if he had been moving in an organised set up he would havehad even more enjoyment as the various chaps in each State would havebeen organised for contact and thereby saved a tremendous amount of time.Harry's running costs for an E.H. model Holden, manual controlled, workedout at about $20 per 1,000 miles for petrol, oil and maintenance. This ismost encouraging and shows that with a reasonable car in fair to averagecondition costs are well within anybody's ability to pay. .

He also, advises that the Nullabor stretch is nothing like the big bear thata lot of peoplethink, provided reasonable precautions are taken.

This pre-run of the Safari is probably the best advertisernent we couldpossibly have and shows that what we set out to achieve is not in any wayimpossible.

Members are asked to give the whole idea a great deal of thought andthen fill in- the questionaire and return it with some alacrity to enable theorganisers to get on with the job of turning this dream into a reality.

CHILDREN'S PICNIC

,MULLALOO BEACH - SUNDAY, MARCH 6 (Long Weekend)

Turn off at 13 mile peg Waneroo RoadFun and Games For Everyone

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Pale Two

February meeting was held at An-zac House Basement 01'1 Feb.. 1. A "very good response too! 'The rifle.shooting that took place was a" credit ':to those present as several cards werewell above average. We had two. fiveshot competitions and Percy Han-cok won the first and Bill Epps thesecond. Bill put' up the best shootof the night with.a ..nice 24 ..out of 25.It was good to see Stan Payne

along and wielding a neat rifle, butlike a lot of us a bit more shakythan of yore.

Gerry Green also present but nowhaving to wear glasses was not thecrack shot we knew in the Unit, butthe old skill was there and it wouldnot surprise the writer if Gerry turn-ed out to be a tough nut in futurecompetitions.On view during the evening was the

Calcutt Memorial Trophy which hasnow been completed. It was com-mented on most' favourably not onlyby our own members but by theCity of Perth Sub-Branch -R.S.L.whose committee meeting fell on thesame night. There will be moreabout this trophy and the resultant,competition in this issue.The evening definitely proved that

the boys do like to have a go withthe old rifle every now and again.

CHILDREN'S PICNIC

SUNDAY NEXT, MARCH 6

Don't forget this function which isin replacement of the Christmas Par-ty. This year it will be held atMullaloo beach which is situated onthe 13 mile peg of the road northto Yanchep. All you have to do iswatch out for the turn off sign.Arrangements are well in hand to

make this really enjoyable familyouting in nice surroundings. Theorganised show by the Associationwill take place after lunch but youare at liberty to arrive at the sceneof operations as early as you likeand every endeavour is being madeto have shelter arranged as early aspossibleDrinks, ice' cream and organised

sports will be the responsibility of theAssociation and you can rest assured

February, 1966

that it will be a wonderful:.'day forthose lIlho go to the trouble to at-tend.

CRICKET MATCH AT .HARVEY

This has been arranged to takeplace on Sunday, March 20. Thisagain should be a cracker-jack. day ifit is anything like the last 'couple" ofdays at Harvey.Arthur Marshall has agreed to

. once again organise the day and hehas plans for a super. dooper day.He would like those attending to beat Harvey to have a bit of cricketstarting approx. 10.30 a.m, Then at12 noon an adjournment for the"Sacred Hour" at the "local". Afterlunch complete the cricket match andthen go to the beach for barbecueand beer. This is only 11 miles awayand is only a short distance from thebest route back to the metropolis.This looks like a good programme

so make up your mind to be in itand head for Harvey early on themorning of Sunday, March 20.

APRIL MEETING

This will be held at Anzac HouseBasement on Tuesday, April 5, andwill be the first of the three sportsnights arranged for the Calcutt Mem-orial Trophy.

MAY MEETING

This will take the form of a Lad-ies' Night and will be held at AnzacHouse Basement on Saturday, May 7.

CALCUTT MEMORIAL TROPHY

As mentioned earlier the CalcuttMemorial Trophy is now availablefor competition. A report by a spec-ial sub-committee to arrange detailsof the competition has been adoptedby the Committee and following arethe relevant portions of that report.Competition to be held on April 5,

1966,.June 7, 1966, and Nov. 1, 1966.The sports to be conducted: rifle

shooting, darts, quoits, table tennisand carpet bowls.Points will be allotted on the basis

of 1st 4 pts., 2nd 3 pts., 3rd 2 pts.,and 4th 1 pt. . .Competitors to take their best score

in anyone of the sports on any ofthe three nights.cot Doig to be marshall for the

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'February, 1966 2/2 Commando Clurler

sports nights and he is to appointextra officials to assist in each of thesports.The idea underlying the points

system is that a competitor only com-peting on' one occasion could be thewinner providing his scores are thebest in the aggregate. This givescountry members who only attend onpossibly one occasion a chance. Italso pays a bonus to those who comealong and compete on every occa-sion as they are permitted to taketheir best score at any sport on anynight.The trophy is a really unique one

and it is certain there is going to bestrong competition to win it and holdit for a year as it will be a nice tro-phy to have on the mantlepieceor T.V.

c:»: c.:»The usual Committee meeting was

held on Tuesday, Feb. 15, at AnzacHouse and a very good muster ofCommittee members attended.

We were honoured with the pres-ence of Clarrie Turner and Reg Har-rington and Merv Schoffield as guests.The Treasurer's report showed that

although finances were holding it wasbecoming rapidly necessary to havean influx of funds and therefore itwas decided that a sweep be conduct-ed. Members will be receiving tic-kets in the near future and you areasked to do your very best with them.

Honour Ave. was stated to now bein really excellent order.

Some considerable time was takenup deabting the report of the sub-cominittee on the Calcutt Trophy andthis was eventually adopted. It wasdecided that the matter of providingreplicas for winners be investigated.

Meeting arrangements as shown inAssociation Activities were agreed to.

The arrangements for the Child-ren's Party at Mullaloo were left withthe sub-committee to finalise.

(J.,.dollattudOn a recent trip to Dwellingup

Jack and Norma Hassen ran intoJohnny Moore and had a few enjoy-able beers with him. Johnny is anofficer with the Forestry Dept. atDwellingup.

Had pleasure of seeing: Ivy Paullat Mandurah one day when in com-pany with Rod and Doris Dhu wewent down for the day. It practic-ally turned into a re-union as wewere joined by Fred and Rose Spark-man and their son. A most enjoy-able day.

See the old Joe Brand quite fre-quently as he is a habitue of thesame hostelery as Yours Truly. Heis the Joe of old and still likes agrog or two.

See Jim McLaughlin with somefrequency and only last Saturday hewas making intense enquiries regard-ing the Great Safari and reckons hewill. ...be making every effort to be'among those present.

Clarrie and Grace Turner werein the big. smoke recently and Jack'and Norma Hasson got a few of thegang together to have a night withthem. Apparently a good night washad by all. Clarrie also came alongto our last Committee meeting andmet a few of the gang.

Reg Harrington was down at Safe-ty Bay for his holidays and he alsocalled in at our Committee meeting

Met Jack Fowler briefly and hada noggin with him. Jack was justreturning from his beach property atMandurah which he has just improv--ed by having a $4,000 house erectedthereon. Jack looks terrific as al-ways.It was most interesting to talk to

Harry Sproxton on his recent tripEast but there is no need for me todwell on this as it is fully coveredin his beaut letter in this issue. Suf-ficient to say it' is the type of mat-erial we desire to publicise the GreatSafari.

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CRICKET MATCH

HARVEY - SUNDAY, MARCH 20

Be there by 10.30 a.m. and be certain of a wonderful day

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'l February, 1966 2/2 Clllllllanul CIII,I... Pale rive.;' )

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Pile Four 212 Commando Clurili- February, 1966

Garoka Grumblings

FAlTA FIBLETSincorporating

Moresby Murmurings - Canungra .... 'e ' .••.••

___________ 2n_d Jaquary, 1944.Vol. 1. No.3.

Nett Sales: 500,000,000,000,000

Printed and' published at the office of the proprietors:No. 1 'The Mudhole", Flats. Skeeter Avenue, Stinkpot.

Squadron Headquarters,1st January, 1944.

I would like to take this opportun-ity to extend to all ranks my verybest wishes for your success and goodfortune during 1944, and at the sametime thank you for the co-operationand loyal support I have receivedfrom you all during 1943.With every man pulling his

weight and striving to give of hisbest I look forward to the comingyear, confident of our ability as aUnit to carry out, faithfully andwell, all tasks that may be allottedto us.

I sincerely hope that 1944 may bethe year in which we reach our fin-al goal of Victory and Peace.

(Signed)G. G. Laidlaw, Major,Commanding Officer,212nd Aust, Cav. (Commando) Sqn.A.I.F. .

LIE S(By Dorothy Gram Kirkwood)

Earth Trembled:Bronzed, bug-blitzing Sgt. Droo-

by, G.S.O., 99 Div., caused disrup-tion, panic amongst microbe harbour-ing camps. Snapped he: "We havetwo enemies to fight, Japanese andgerms--the latter are to be dreadedmost. Japanese fight cleanly; germsinfiltrate unknown, unheralded. :tostrike down your cobbers. We mustopen a second, third, even a fourthfront against germs." To irate,hitherto complacent camp O.Cs.,Drooby appeared as the' Messiah; el-icited promises in death-dealing ops.against sneaking, germ-carrying bugs.

Drooby promised Malariol, Flytox,Anti-mite in gigantic drive to cleanup Faita, promised inscribed flag tobest kept camp every month, offeredto camp Fathers, slogan, "STERIL-ISE TO CIVILISE".

S.W.P.A.:Defeat news from S.W.P.A.

brought more lines to much furrow-ed brow of Japan's Tojo; caused himto take lately much-worn path to an-cestor's shrine. Tojo's eyes flickered,looked at maps, saw Allied Nations'line creeping in on air-raid-precau-tion-taking Tokio; saw victoriousGuadalcanal veteran Marines landingat Cape Glouster, Long Island-sawMountbatten's two year jungle train-ed troops pouring slowly but surelyover border for long awaited, muchdiscussed Burmese campaign. AtCape Glouster to much bombed gar--rison, landing came as a measure ofrelief, after period of 3,500 bombtons per month bashing. McArthurhushed much excited correspondents,said: ''This is just an example ofwhat back stabbing Japs '.can ex--pect." Defending apparent islandhopping campaign, quoth he: "Bysimultaneous landings at severalpoints Japanese cannot use islandlanding grounds to rush air reinforce-ments to one point" Meanwhile atGlouster while Marines pouredashore widened bridgehead, establish-ed strong points, enemy made firstair counter attack since battle ofGaroka, lost 69 planes against Alli-ed four plane losses. At not defend-ed Long Island U.S. troops madeunopposed landing, tightening netaround Japanese on Huon Peninsu-

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lar. With 7 Div. holding centre and21nd Sqd. holding left flank, Jap-anese in Madang area hold an in-vidious position.EUROPE:As whispered landing in Europe

ferred with Churchill at Battle-of-grew stronger and Roosevelt con-Britain bombed Liverpool, all eyes inS.W.P. focussed on auburn haired,much talking Commando, Algernon"Bluey" Reid as he prepared to takeoff in stratosphere flying C.47 Trans-port from Faita. To questions as towhether he was conferring with Al-lied leaders, enigmatic 'Blue" re-plied: "Just routine business." Mean-while speculation grew, hitherto well-informed circles adopted oyster pol-

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icy. The world waited; did this meanthe long awaited 8th front?

The Gaiety,London, D.C.4,27th December, 1943.

Neal A. Bray,Faita, N.G.Sir,Allow me to take the liberty of

conveying m ygratitude for the won-derful rendering of the great Shake-spearean play "Caesar", which I hadthe honour to attend.

Seldom in our life is it given to amortal to see two great artists 'tread-ing the boards' (as Alfred Lunt wouldsay) in the legitimate art, as your-self and myself.

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2/2 Commando IJ8Untr

It is on account of this that I nowapproach you with this proposition,that you wed my daughter Daphne,at an early date and have a child 'by her. The results of this unioncould be carefully nurtured and pre-sented to our descendants, whowould bless our foresight in perpet-uating such a combination of art.In closing, my esteemed friend,

please let me impress upon you thenecessity for haste, as Daphne is no'longer a young woman-need I saymore? -Gerald de Maurier.

Believe it or not:-"A" Troop beat the Yanks at

softball.

MY DAZEAn interlude at H.Q. during the

week.Sgt. Drooby: "Er - Jock. About

this pool."W.O. Jock McGregor: "What's

wrong with the ???? pool?"Sgt. Drooby: 'Mmmm, yes, the

men, Jock, they're washing in it. It'sunhygienic."Jock: "Well, what's wrong with

them washing in the ???? pool?"Sgt. Drooby: "Mmmrn, Yerrs, it's

not that Jock, but I've seen, er, twopuk-puks in it! Mmmm, yes. Andat 0745 hrs. this morning two of themen were feeding them."And so it ,goes on, -arnid the

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February, 1966 2/2 Commando Courier Page Seven

cheers of the men. Sgt. Droobycertainly has a cross to bear.

~History repeats itself: "Bunny An-

derson, having completed a 20 yearcycle since the last time, again fell,or was dropped on his head, thisweek.

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Who was the Acting Blank Fileobserved attempting to fire .38 roundsthrough his Owen Gun? "These17?? Australian- weapons!"

Quoth the Doc: "Now, when Iwas on Mt. Wilhelm . . . "

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A substantial reward is offered forinformation leading to the finding oflaps-preferably live ones.

-Ye Bosse.

CALL IT WHAT YOU LIKE(By L-Cpl. J. Hartley)

Oh, it's hard to get out of the army,And back into civvy life,Where you never do patrols or guard,{}r get into ruddy strife.It's a bit of a cow in the Army,When you're out in the rain and

snow,But the soldier's life has pleasuresThat the civvies never know.

They don't get camel steak andcookies,

Or coffee made from burnt wheat,They never see puk-puk or mokkas,Or are kai-bombed=-a wonderful

treat. 'They never see spuds dehydrated, "Egg powder, or meat in a pail,Or know the pleasure of waitinggFor week after week for their mail.

Quite often I just sit and ponder,Of the dear, dead days of yore,When life was all beer and skittles,And of women by the, score.Would I like to be quit of the Army?And not soldier on as I should?To be quite frank and truthful,My bloody oath I would.

. But still, there's something about theArmy,

Not much fun, lots of work, stormand strife, ,,"

But the Navy and' Air, they can go"they know where",

For the Army, it gets you for life.So all you Cavalry Commandos,Just stop and think awhile,Of Frankie Forde and his pal Eddie

Ward,And soldier on with a smile.

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HARRY SPROXTON, writes:-Herewith a brief account of our

trip to the Eastern States which wasmade exactly 20 years after passingthrough for discharge.

With Thel and young Don (we leftKerry behind with Thel's mother asshe gets terribly car sick) we set offfrom Perth on Dec. 12, and "made ashort leg to Coolgardie where westayed overnight with my brother.The temperature was 102 deg. whenwe passed through Southern Cross,as this was at the beginning of theheat wave due for Perth .We left Coolgardie the following

morning with no particular goal inmind, as we had blow up mattresses,a portable gas outfit, plenty of foodand water and we could pull up andcamp whenever we felt like stopping.We arrived at Balladonia in the earlyafternoon with the temperature againover the century and I had mentalpictures of the old Nullabor shim--

mering in a heat haze. While wewere enjoying a couple of cold ones,two or three truck drivers 'who hadjust pulled in were describing theroad ahead of us with colourful ad-jectival phrases and one big fellowcheered us up considerably when hestated that in his 11 years of inter-state driving he had never seen theroad in such a shocking condition.After digesting all this I decided to

get as many miles behind us aspossible, so once more we headed offand reached the John Eyre Motel intime for an early evening meal. Thisis approximately 684 miles fromPerth and although the road is notbitumen it is formed up ready forsealing some considerable miles pastthis point.

After tea we drove on 99 milesto Madura and camped at -the top ofthe pass.From Madura to Eucla the road is

very stoney but didn't seem to have

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Paie Eicht 2/2 Commando Courier February, 1966

Page Nine2/2 Commando Courier.February, 1966for Melbourne where we arrivedshortly before midnight.In Melbourne we stayed with

Thel's uncle and aunt and thatshould' be very. much in the pluralas her relations seemed to be every-where and one night I met no leuthan 22 in one hit Unfortunatelyon arriving in Melbourne I lost notime in getting hold of some virus andlost two valuable days off our timequota.I contacted the old Botterill and

we spent an enjoyable afternoon andevening with Olive and Harry, orperhaps I should emphasise evening'as in the afternoon Harry very kindlydrove me all the way to Seaford to'see our old friend Duncan Campbell.Jock hasn't altered but looks a littletired on it and no wonder as he andhis wife put in about eight days aweek on their business at Seaford.We left Melbourne on New YearsDay arriving in Sydney the followingevening where we' were fortunate ingetting accommodation at a motel atWarwick Farm. I must add at thisstage that accommodation is extreme-ly hard to come by at this time ofthe year and booking ahead is justabout a must.

I rang Ron Trengrove's numberwith no sucess and after 33 attemptscame to the conclusion that the dayafter New Years Day was not agood time to find chaps at home.However, on arriving at Epping I

had little trouble in nding the homeof Michael Devlin and the man him-self out on the front lawn. I hadthe advantage in knowing who it was,but three seconds after saying: "Howare you Mick?" he said: "Strewth, it'sSprocko," and 20 years rolled awayas if it were 20 minutes.During our brief stay in Sydney,

Betty Devlin and family were ourguides and the fact that we finishedup. in one piece after locking hornswtth half a million motor cars is atestimony of their ability.Two days later we pulled up in the

main street of Kempsey and withinfive paces came face to face with BillWalsh and wife Beryl which consid-little short of miraculous. Bill hassold the taxi business and is now atering the population of Kempsey isthe Kempsey R.S.L. Club. Thisbuilding has everything in the way ofmodern day amenities and the coupleof hours we spent with Bi1l andBeryl were an education in the way

the huge potholes in it that theSouth Australian section had.

Our third night we spent a fewmiles east of Ivy Tanks and by mid-day the following day we had arrivedat Ceduna .with most of the roughgoing behind us. The weather hadbeen very kind to us and apart fromthe first two days was quite cool andenjoyable.

1 have dwelt on this section of thetrip a little to - reassure any of youwho may have doubts about it, butas Col Doig would say: "It's a pieceof cake."

On leaving Ceduna we took thedirt road to the south through StreakyBay and Port Lincoln and here paidthe penalty for lack of organisation.1 had always thought Shorty Stevenslived near Snow Town and I actuallypassed the turn-off which led to Yal-lunda Flat.To cut a long story short we car-

ried on through Why alia, Port Aug-usta across the end of the BarossaValley and up the Murray Valley toBerri where we stayed for a few dayswith my cousins at Winkie.

From here we travelled out a fewmiles to Loxton to see HowardMarks and spent an enjoyable coupleof hours with Howard and his wifeand family who made us very wel-come. At this point I must apolo-gise to Howard for not contactingBob Williamson in Adelaide on ourreturn trip, but I had run. out oftime and was actually a week behindschedule and had to pass straightthrough Adelaide en route to Perth.This meant missing old Neuzerling forwhich I deeply regret.On' passing through Mildura in

the evening of Dec. 22 I called atNorm Tillets address but unfortun-ately there was no one there' al-though the sprinkler was going onthe lawn.

We arrived at Bendigo about mid-day the following day and had notrouble in finding the Fleece Inn, andof course Kev Curran, his wife Gladand their son who is another TuanBort. We spent about three hoursin this genial company and then' ourhost guided us in the direction of theEppalock Dam where the supervisoris none other than Harry Sargent.There once again we were made

to feel very much at home with Har-ry and his lovely wife who wined usand dined us until regretfully we hadto return to the bitumen and head

Peta and Maria; George' and MelMathieson and daughter Susan; andHarry Fredericks. After a visit tothe Wooli Bowling Club we re-gathered at Ron and May Orrs holi-day bungalow and proceeded to enjoyourselves around Haps new bar-b-qwhich made a very happy ending to awonderful afternoon. The only oneto have altered a great deal is RonOrr .who is without exageration threetimes as big as when we knew himin the old days.The next morning with Rene Green

halgh as our guide we journeyed toGrafton which is a surprisingly largecentre with excellent shopping facil-ities. In the afternoon Alan and

_ Edith Luby showed us over the Am-bulance Depot and then drove us tomany points of interest in and aroundGrafton. Alan without a doubt isworking to capacity plus and how hemanages to fit everything in is be-yond me.lt was now Jan. 17 and we were

fast running out of time, and ourplans of further stops in Melbourneand Adelaide had to be discarded.I think Maclean has so much to offerthat when the Safari eventuates Hap-py and Rene will have half the Unitas neighbours for their retirement.We left these two good friends on

Wednesday, Jan. 18, and travelledback via Glen Innes and the NewEngland Highway as on the trip upwe had followed the coast from Mel--bourne by way of the Princes High-way and then north from Sydney onthe Pacific Highway.After an overnight stop at Scone

we checked in to Canberra wherewe stayed a day and a half and man--aged to spend a few hours at theWar Memorial Museum.

Leaving Canberra late in the after-noon we used Cooma as our over-night base and mid-morning the fol-lowing day found us at Lake Eucum-bene in the Snowy Mountains SchemeI won't waste space trying to des-cribe it as the achievements here haveto be seen to be believed and muchis beyond imagination. After a verylong day we reached Albury via theHume Reservoir, had tea and con-tinued on to Melbourne arrivingthere around midnight.

We had hoped to accompany Har-ry Botterill and family on a. visit .tosee Ken Monk at his farm down 'atPoowong but our time quota hadTUn out.

R.S.L. Clubs and Service Clubs op-erate throughout the East.

At 5 o'clock that evening we ar-rived at Maclean on the ClarenceRiver and stopped outside the PostOffice just .as the genial Postmaster,Mr. George Greenhalgh was shut-ting lip shop for the night.

Happy and Rene have their homein a lovely position overlooking theMaclean Bowling Club and after afew wonderful days with them I fullyunderstand how Harry Botterill puton a stone in weight during his holi-day at Maclean. Incidently there arefish in the Clarence River and quitegood ones too. I must point outthis fact for the benefit of Victorianvisitors.

On Tuesday, Jan 11, we headednorth once more and shortly aftermidday arrived at Kyogle to be metby our old friend Jim Cullen. Jimhas in excess of a thousand acres ofgrazing land at Afteriee, approx. 14miles from Kyogle and I think inall about 350 head of Hereford cat--tie, which were in the throes of be-ing dipped during our stay.On the Friday morning accompan-

ied by Jim and Beryl with theirdaughter Catrina and son Neal, weset off to an early start and passedthrough Lismore to Bangalow wherewe tarried a short time with RussBlanche and his good wife at theirbusiness premises in the main .street.

By lunch time we were at Mur-willumbah and in the afternoon wesaw Tweed Heads and the PorpoisePool, Coolangatta, Southport, andarrived in Brisbane at nightfall. Af-ter tea and a good look around weset off through Beaudesert and overMt. Lindesay checking in- at Kyoglesome time after midnight.

All in all it was a very full andenjoyable day and I think the Cul-len clan enjoyed it just as much aswe did.The following morning we said

farewell to Jim and Beryl and theirhospitality and headed south backto Maclean. After a brief stop inKyogle to say hello and have a glasswith Tommy Yates and his wife

Happy and Rene during our ab--sence had organised a get togetherto take place at Wooli on the coastwhere Ron and May Orr were holi-daying. This event. was on the Sun-day afternoon and those who madethe trip from Grafton were Alanand Edith Luby with their daughters

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212 Commando Courier February, '1966Page Ten

During the one day remaining Har-ry spent some time on the phone withexcellent results and at 5 o'clock atthe London the following evening 10or 11 of us were there to enjoy thatshort hour. The response at suchshort notice speaks volumes of theattitude of the members .of our As-sociation; I made a mental note byway of order of arrival and trust Ihaven't omitted anyone and mustblame it on Victorian hospitality ofI have done so. Those respondingto the caJl included Geoff Laidlaw,Gerry Mackenzie, Gerry O'Toole,Harry Botterill, Jim Wall, BernieCallinan, John Roberts, Bell Tuc-ker and George Kennedy. -

The next day was the start on theroad back and although we startedoff again with two days topping thecentury the trip from Ceduna toPerth couldn't have been better wea-ther.

In all we covered nearly 9,000miles and met some 23 members ofthe Unit and that alone made itvery worth while.-This started out to be brief and

very smartly got out of control, soI will leave it to our Editor and hispruning shears.

Many thanks to you all who help-ed to make the trip such a mernor-able one and will see you all againon the Safari.

PETER B~DEN, of 6CN, Box 310Coraldton, W.A., writea:-It was a great pleasure seeing

you during my recent annual leaveand having a noggin or two withyou at the Royal Hotel. I wouldsuggest that any other countrymembers in the "big smoke" on aFriday, call in at the "Royal" be-tween 1 and 2 p.m. and have ayarn with ,"Mr. Editor". I canassure them that it will be a veryinteresting 60 minutes. Further-more the yarn will no doubt pro-vide you with some material forthe "Courier".

Before we returned to Gerald-ton we made a point of visitingLovekin Drive' .in Kings Park.Hearty congratulations to those re-sponsible for the obviously out-standing work performed in ourHonour Avenue. The value of thereticulation system was clearly evi-dent and a 2/11th mate who ac-companied us agreed that our sec-

tion put'the other Honour Avenuesto shame. You never know, itmight provide food for thoughtfor other Units.It was my pleasure to "r un into"

Jack Carey at the Perth Cup andthe smiles all over his face indic-ated that he was having a goodtime. Anyhow it was very nice tosee you once again, Jack.

As both the wife and I are nowkeen bowlers, we spent a lot of ourholiday time at the nearby Man-ning Memorial Bowling Club andthoroughly enjoyed the excellenceof their greens. (I would com-mend this Club to any of you city-ites thinking about taking up thissport which can be summed up inone word-"relaxation".)

Talking about bowls, my wifeand I had a yarn with Bill Drageand his wife at the Ger aldton" Bowl-ing, Club during the festive period.Bill is apparently too fond of hisgolf to get stuck into bowls. Hereis an extract from a recent issue ofthe local newspaper: "Bill Dragewas in dynamic form around the

. greens, listing nine one-putt holes.Unfortunately, however, this wasthe only phase of his game inwhich he held control. When hemanaged not to slice his tee shotshe hooked them, hitting one downthe middle on fhe rare occasion.Often his second shot went intoan unplayable position in therough. However, not to be beat-en, he insists that next week willsee his true form."

We still haven't heard how yougot on the next week, Bill, but onething is certain-you had an en-joyable "post mortem" at the 19th.

Bill's many friends will be gladto hear that he is looking excep-tionally well (I always said· thatGeraldton was a good place inwhich to live).

Don Young of Mullewa, recentlyentered "double harness" and sayshe's sorry he didn't do so yearsago. Married life is obviouslyagreeing with him as he looked inthe pink of condition.

Geraldton is certainly goingahead by leaps and bounds, the lat-est addition being a 7-storey re-gional hosnttal expected to be completed within the next couple ofmonths. It is; a £1i million build-

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February, 1966 212 Commando Courier Page Eleven

ing on. which my elder son, Ross,is busily occupied as a plumberwith the Geraldton Building Co.-a mammoth organisation which lastyear had a record turnover ofmore than £2 million. Wheneverany "double red diamond" typesare visiting this town, I suggestthey have a look over this com-pany's huge premises where morethan 300 men are employed.

Big harbour works have alreadybeen undertaken in connectionwith the export of iron ore whichwill get under way in March. Theore is being mined at Koolanookanear Morawa. (incidentally IrishHopkins is now in charge of thebar at the Morawa Hotel). Jap-anese technicians are now carryingout blasting tests in our harbourwith a view to deepening the en-trance.

I have a suggestion to make,which I feel sure will be supportedby you, Col, as a member of theR.S. L. State Executive. It is thatmore of you ex-diggers take ad-vantage; of the facilities that areoffering at Anzac House Club. Youalready hold your Associationmeetings at Anzac House Basementso why not make the Club a reg-ular meeting place. You will notonly pay less for your beer, butyou will also be able to play bil-liards, snooker, pool, darts andcarpet bowls, as well as obtain ameal or a snack. Facili ties for ashower, including towels, are alsoavailable.

Well, I must be away for thepresent, .so kind regards to all theboys .

PETER MANTLE. of Box 120, Bila-oela, Queensland, writes:-1966 subs and the balance to gen-

eral funds.There has been rain in the past few

weeks, changing the whole picture offuture hopes for this area. We'renot out of the woods-or desert-bya long chalk, but after the droughtyear that followed eight dry years,if's encouraging. A few months agoone farmer I know was cutting downhis bottle trees to feed stock . . .and when you get to that stage, youreally are desperate.

This isn't hot news, but may beof some interest to anyone with ayoung kid -of faulty eyesight: my

daughter Marjorie aged 10 'now hascontact lenses, and took to themwith very little trouble. So has mywife. So has my son aged 15. Myown eyes need bi-focal glasses, so contacts wouldn't be much advantage asI'd have to carry reading glasses.B~lt they've been a blessing to myWIfe Margaret, whose glasses hadneeded to be so thick that theirsheer weight in this sweaty climatebecame painful. I'm told that a 10year trial-now about halfwaythrough-~- may well demonstratethat contact lenses slow up the rateof worsening short sightedness inyoungsters: that, say, between theage of six and 16, a short sighted kidis going to get progressively moreshort sighted, but less, with contactthan with glasses.The Darwin paper puts out a

monthly called "The Territorian", Isaw a copy of their December issuewith quite a long article and, manyphotographs on Portugese Timor.Some things described as of todayare so vastly different from how weknew them that it's quite funny toread .

I have written away to Darwin forthree copies of the publication, andwill send one to you, Mr. Editor.I've also sent them a copy of "Com-mando Courier", explained our inter-est, and sought permission for the"Courier" to quote slabs from theTimor article. If permission isgranted, you, Mr. Editor, may thinkit worth running a few extracts fromthe article. If permission is refusedyou can still print a rewrite of theinformation it gives. The actual se-quence of words can be copyright,but there is no copyright in facts, andyou'd be at liberty to use the factsin writing an article of your own.

JIM FENWICK, of 71 Morgan Cres-cent, Curtin, A.C.T., writes:-Just a few lines notifying you of

my change of address from 35 Pic-nic Pt. Rd., Panania, N.S.W., to 71Morgan Crescent, Curtin, A.C.T.Also I have changed occupations.

I retired from the army as of Nov.7, 1965, and took on the job ofcommunications co-ordinator at Or-roral Valley, a stallite tracking anddata acquisition station about 35miles out of Canberra.It is a new field for me although

I have been fortunate' enough tokeep on the communications side of'

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~I!e Twelve _ 2/2 Commando Courier February, 1966

were able to listen ~to the last two I never did receive one."". man in space trips direct from the I receive my "Courier" regularly,~ ;,,' satellites themselves as it actually and enjoy it very much. Seeing

happened. '.' "Shorty" Stevens letter reminds me )We drive the 35' miles each way did a trip to Canberra too, over

daily and it is aft improvement on Christmas and I couldn't findcommuting by train in Sydney or Mel "Boong" Maley's name on the Hon--bourne. our Roll. Or was I looking for theI am at present purchasing this wrong name? The chap I'm thinking

house so you veteran home owners of was killed at Weisa, "A" Troop,are well aware of the snags I am but I'm not sure of the Section now.going through, This is not helped My memory is so bad about someby the Public Service attitude here things that although I can rememberof "there's always next week" or all their faces and most names I can't'like it or lump it" which seems to remember which Section or Troop.have spread to the shop keepers and Also who was the chap we buried attradespeople. Goroka while we were resting there

Despite the above I like Canberra alongside the mission air strip?and hope to stop here until at least Also if the right fellow's readingmy four children . ~re finished at this, who was in the swimming poolschool, While chasing my children with me the day the two Zeros came

, to hurry up at the Dickson swimming over and straffed the mission house?pool I saw Alan Stewart and had I sure thought I was his target thatquite a yarn. Have lost Alan's ad- day.dress and have no others of other I sure wish we could have some2/2nd chaps in Canberra. Hope this of those "dos" over here that younote will help me contact them. have over there, but we just can't

All the best to everyone. seem to get together here in Queens-land. There has been a few attemptsbut no one turns up. Most of thechaps I knew well are from Sydney.so maybe I'll make that "town" oneof these days, I guess we all havegood intentions but we never carrythem out.

Please find enclosed money forsubs. Must be owing by now.

BILL CONNELL, of 101 Ashley St.,Fairfield, Queensland, writes:-You're a lucky man, all these sur-

prise letters you receive from time totime. It must be at least a couple ofyears since I last wrote. However,I'm still in the land of the living andin the best of health. My two ladsare both growing up fast. The eld-est will be 19 in April and theyoungest 14 in March. Nearly offmy hands.

(Printed for the publisher by "TheSwan Express", 10 Helena Street,

Midland, W.A.)

CHILDREN'S PICNICMULLALOO BEACH - SUNDAY, MARCH 6 (Long Weekend)

Turn off at 13 mile peg Waneroo RoadFun and Games For Everyone

CRICKET MATCHHARVEY - SUNDAY"MARCH 20

Be there by 10.30 a.m. and be certain of a wonderful day

APRIL MEETINGANZAC HOUSE BASEMENT - TUESDA Y, APRIL 5

First competition for Calcutt Memorial Trophy'This is your chancefor a flying start to win this coveted trophy

MAY MEETING LADIES' NIGHTANZAC HOUSE BASEMENT - SATURDAY, MAY 7

I

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