Section 3 of "A Book on the WAAAF"

We'll Always Remember

THERE have been moments in our service careers when something unusual has happened or something has occurred that has stirred our emotions in an unforgettable way. Here are some of these moments gathered from conversations with members of the W.A.A.A.F.

"I was a clerk-general working at a command headquarters with the equipment officer. In the first months after Japan came into the war I worked back nearly every night; my Wing Commander seemed always to work till midnight. I handled all priority signals for spare parts, ammunition and other supplies for the squadrons. The Wing-Commander would put his head in his hands and groan, "If only I had more stuff to send them! If only I had more planes to send them! " My most vivid memory is seeing a signal on his desk which read, "Prepare for enemy action off North Eastern Coast." I thought: "They're getting near." I took my tin hat right into the office with me that night. The battle of the Coral Sea was about to start. That was early May, 1942."

The South-West Pacific Communiqué issued in March, 1943, said "The Battle of the Bismarck, Sea is now decided. We have achieved a victory of such completeness as to assume the proportions of a major disaster to the enemy. His entire force was practically destroyed

There's one member of the W.A.A.A.F. who says her most memorable moments were those when she watched the hour-to-hour history of the battle in photographs.

"Each print was a rush job and each one showed some evidence of enemy loss. I can remember nearly cheering as one ship after another was identified as sunk or burning."

"It was one of the most beautiful moonlight nights I have ever seen and the lone raider appeared out to sea, caught almost immediately in the beam of the searchlights. Bombs were dropped, harmlessly, but the aircraft continued to fly towards the town and out over Castle Hill. The scene was as clear as daylight; the plane caught in the white searchlights, the tracers from the fighter planes playing around it. I'll always remember that night, the thrill and excitement of that high-up battle and the murmur of dozens of hushed voices all around, tuning in with the sound of the aircraft."

"I'll always remember the first issue of 'peas-blue'. They were as hard as bullets and I didn't know what to do with them. I shall never forget that miracle happening, when after soaking and careful cooking I served them up looking like fresh green peas!"

"I'll always remember getting tired and more tired as we did a rush job packing parachutes. We packed till our wrists nearly dropped off. It was all terribly 'hush-hush'. They were the ones used by the first Australian air-borne soldiers at Lae and Salamaua."

"They came off the ship on a cold night in a Southern capital. The first I saw had a pair of shorts, sand-shoes, a blanket round his shoulders and a R.A.F. cap on his head; the next one had shorts and a safari jacket. I'll never forget that night and the next day-the meaning of war and the tragedy of retreat became real to me for the first time as we drove these ill-fed, ill-clad men and found them food, clothes and a resting place."

"My most vivid memory will always be of the actual enlistment ceremony. It's not because my service life has been dull either-I've plotted the approach of enemy aircraft with only a roof of corrugated iron between that aircraft and me ... But that moment of taking the oath meant something to me. I had served for 18 months like everyone else just as an enrolled member of the W.A.A.A.F., and now I placed my hand on a Bible and swore to resist the King's enemies . . . I thought of the hundreds of other girls doing the same thing and I felt a surge of pride in my membership with them in the Royal Australian Air Force. Yes, that's the moment I'll always remember."

"A narrative and recording officer in an operations room has a lot of dull things to do. But it's worth it because if there's anything on you're part of it. (Unless that's the night-duty that you've exchanged with someone else because you felt you ought to spend the evening with a cousin; you haven't seen him since he was a schoolboy, and he embarks in the morning. You didn't ever like your cousin and swapping your duty on the very night there was a real flap on made you positively hate him. He didn't embark for days anyhow, and any other night in the next week would have done just as well!)

However, I'll always remember the night of duty I didn't miss when there was a flap on. It was the night of the submarine attack on Sydney Harbour. It was quiet in the Operations Room. Controller, navigator and narrative were assessing the results of the day's operations. Then we got the first message: "Indications of a possible submarine in the port." From then on things were busy. There was no more quiet. Telephones, local and long distance, started to ring. Then through the office noises came the thud of depth charges and gun-fire. Telephone calls in and out, messages by hand and signals came and went. Reports came in to be assessed, accepted, discarded. There were several submarines . . . . They were midget submarines from a parent vessel . . . Quietly, swiftly, efficiently, in all the noise the chase was planned. I'll always remember that night."

"The moment I shall always remember was the moment that I suddenly really hated the enemy we fought in the Pacific. I read a message from one of our aircraft on patrol. It was a report that on patrol they had sighted a lifeboat, the occupants of which held up a charred plank bearing the word, 'CENTAUR"'.

Lines Written in a Military Hospital

PERHAPS it was a case of mistaken identity You see, I had a tingling in my finger. The M.O. ordered me to hospital.

I had always vaguely imagined that a sojourn in hospital meant sitting tip in bed, with plenty of pillows, and wearing your best bed jacket and enough make-up to look interesting, eating grapes, reading Vogue, and having dainty meals served to you at the bedside.

Well, I managed breakfast in bed, but immediately afterwards . . .

"Bed 19? You are down to polish the floors. Up you get! "

So up I got, and from that time on I did not look back. No best bed jacket, no dainty breakfast trays, no grapes-they were out of season. Instead there was a succession of "light duties" which included polishing the -ward floors, doing thirty vases of flowers, and making sure that you did not upset the Abdominal Operation by giving her violets to the Kidney Trouble.

Then there were the days when you washed up the breakfast, lunch and tea things of the thirty-six patients.

Meanwhile, running through all this was the Main Theme the set course of Investigations into the cause of my tingling. The first three tests were all the same, except that I performed for different doctors of ascending rank. I shut my eyes and touched my nose with my finger, and put my heel on my knee, and shut my eyes again and stood still and unwavering for half a minute, and said, "No, I've never had any headaches" and reacted properly when they tickled the soles of my feet and hit me below the knee.

One morning they gave me a lumbar puncture. This, for the uninitiated, consists of curling up on the bed with your head tucked into your knees and having a bayonet stuck into the base of your spinal cord, and, when it's all over, saying with the doctor, "No, it didn't hurt a bit."

After a couple of X-rays of the head, and eye examinations, I was despatched to the University for an electro -something or other. A voluntary war transport driver took me there, and cheered me up on the way by telling me that I was far too young to have a chronic illness

After waiting about an hour at the University, I was ushered by a young man into a small room with a large wire cage in it.

"What is the cage for?" I asked in a bright, but rather strained, voice.

"Oh, that's what the current runs through," said the young man as he sat me in a chair and picked up a pair of scissors.

"And the scissors?"

But there was no need to answer. He was already cutting out large chunks of my hair. This, I thought, was a bit much, and when he took up a razor and began to shave four patches round my head, I did not know whether to feel like Samson and Delilah, or four monks, or just bursting into tears.

By this time the young man was becoming really enthusiastic. Bits of my hair, of which I am rather proud, began flying round the cage. He then grabbed a jar and started furiously rubbing something on to my bald patches. I presume it was a local anesthetic, because when he picked up some long fine wire with little coloured plugs at one end, and dug the other ends into my patches, it didn't hurt anything but my pride.

I object to being treated like a guinea-pig, and murmured something to that effect.

"Pooh!" said this wholly obnoxious young man, "this is quite common." and went silently on with his work of destruction.

After sticking four of these horrific bits of wire into my scalp, he attached one to my temple and one to my car lobe. And then he went out of the room.

By this time I did not care what he did. After some time he appeared with a Service doctor. 'Hop an to the table," he said, "and lie flat an your back."

Then he grabbed one of my plugs and put it on a battery.

"She has got a high resistance," said the M.O.

Personally, having allowed myself to be put in this ridiculous position, I felt it was a very low resistance. The humiliation continued with all my little plugs being stuck into the cage, and then they turned on the heat. The machine made a most alarming noise, and I thought it must be registering all my naughtiest thoughts, and I hastily tried to think all the good ones.

'Every now and again they said "Now shut your eyes and pant as if you'd been running."

"I don't pant when I run," I said.

"Well, never mind, just pant." So I panted for two minutes, which is a long time to pant artificially and makes your throat like a rasp.

It seemed a long time later that they pulled the wires out of my head and said, "Now go and powder your nose because we're going to take your photo."

So I went away and tried to comb my few remaining curls over my monkish tonsure and prayed to heaven that no one would come back from the Middle East for a few more weeks anyway.

After the photographing they let me go, but I'd got an hour's leave from, the hospital, so I dodged home to weep on Mother's shoulder and have a whisky with Father.

Two days later I was sent to the University again. By this time I was beginning to think that it must be either the Looney Bin or the surgeon's knife for me in the end . . . if there was going to be an end.

However, this time I was psychoanalyzed.

We started off, the little man and I with a cosy chat about my home life, my love life, my service life. He was able to elicit that my parents were not on the point of divorce, that they did not beat me, that I was not being victimized in the Service, that I was not crossed in love. Then came the piece-de-resistance of the afternoon - the Ink Blots.

The little man produced ten large cards on which were printed enlarged impressions of ink blots - the kind of blot you get from writing your name on a piece of paper and folding it on the wet ink.

He handed these to me, one by one, asking my impressions.

The door was shut, I was not among friends, the afternoon was before me -and so were the ink blots. There was nothing for it-I had to play ball.

"This one is like two little bears, yes, and their noses are together. And this one is like -er-like a bat, perhaps. And this-this reminds me of the Russian Ballet." And so it went on, because we went through them three times just to ensure that I had missed nothing. After an hour and a half I was quite exhausted.

The next investigation was early in the morning, and I was a bit unnerved anyway, having passed a bad night in -he ward listening to three appendectomies coming out of their anesthetics.

"Well, I can't find anything wrong" said the charming specialist.

"That's what they all say," I said, "but if they go on investigating so hard they'll make something", and then, before I could get out of the room, I wept.

"Now, now, now," he said, "sit down and tell me all."

"It's the psychiatrists," I sobbed. "They've got me!"

He looked at me and grinned. "Have you had the Ink Blots?"

I nodded.

"Well, my dear girl, so have 1, and whatever you say is wrong. Indubitably. If you say 'It looks like a swan,' then you go down as a homosexual, and if you say 'Oh no, I mean it looks 'Like a man on a horse,' then you go down as a kleptomaniac. So don't you worry.

This cheered me up enormously, and I was able to face having my head felt by the eminent neuro-surgeon, and the conferences behind closed doors with me on the outside.

All this time, of course, no indication was given of how I was coming along in the tests. The Insane Asylum and the Surgeon's Knife still loomed large--especially as I lay awake before dawn listening to the appendix cases being sick and tonsil cases snoring, and the nerve cases grinding their teeth, and wondering which was to be my f ate.

One day they said: "You're going to have your last test in the morning."

"Last test before what?" I asked.

"Before discharge," they said.

Discharge! Magic word! After seven weeks' wondering, and light duties, and investigations.

They dressed me in calico leggings, with a calico handkerchief around what remained of my hair, and with my little white face peering out underneath this head-dress they carried me off to the theatre and gave me a shot of morphia. I then straddled a chair with my arms along the back, and they gave me another lumbar puncture. As the fluid drained off I began to feel a little faint, so they gave me brandy. Then they injected oxygen into my head and blew up my brain. This I think is the epitome of indignity.

Amid the agony I remember wishing I could blow theirs out.

Nowadays nearly every big Air Force Station has its well-beloved Salvation Army or Y.M.C.A. welfare representative; but the girls who know her insist that there is only one

Mrs. MAC

SHE CAME into the mess at lunchtime one hot dusty day, a small neat woman, with dark brown hair drawn plainly in a knot, steady blue eyes, and a mouth with a humorous quirk to it.

She walked serenely down the long room to the W.A.A.A.F. officers' table, apparently unaware that she was creating about as big a sensation as a visitor from Mars. Indeed, to most members of this officers' mess at one of the oldest and largest of Air Force stations, she was a visitor from another world-in her neat dark uniform with the high collar and red trimmings of the Salvation Army. Of course they were used to Salvation Army officers and canteens on various battle-fronts, but the female of the species invading their own mess was something of a shock.

However, she hadn't been on the station a week before the sight of her walking along the dusty roads, in that uniform with its black stockings and prim little straw hat with the red band, was as familiar and commonplace as a flight of blue-jeaned airmen marching up from the hangars at lunch-time. In fact, the station got quite a shock the day she appeared in her Air Force Welfare representative's uniform, looking like a W.A.A.A.F. officer except for the red shield badges on her collar and cap!

And after all the anxious deliberations on the part of the C.O. and the W.A.A.A.F. officers as to how she was to be addressed-whether she would retain her Salvation Army title of "Adjutant" or whether she'd be another "Madam"-she was suddenly and quite simply "Mrs. Mac" to everyone on the place.

It wasn't so long afterwards that if a visitor to the mess raised an amazed eyebrow over his pint pot when she came in to dinner, one of the "residents" would say with a sort of affection in his voice, "Oh, that's our Mrs. Mac . . . she's a good scout."

The airwomen adored her from the start. With her quick sense of humour and gay infectious laugh, she wasn't "goody-goody". She had the gift of being a good listener, and they soon found there wasn't anything you couldn't talk to her about, from a pinprick to a heartbreak. She didn't think you were an old softie if you simply had to talk about mum and the kids at home, and that awful longing you had to be walking in the back-door right now.

The things they'd ask her!

"Do you think it's wrong to write the same letter to three different boys?"

"Gee, Mrs. Mac., what'm I going to give my mum for her birthday?"

"Mrs. Mac., can you get the five of us in at the same hostel next weekend?"

"Mrs. Mac, be an angel and bring me back some more of this embroidery silk next time you go to town?"

"Mrs. Mac.-if my appendix has to come out, Promise to come in the ambulance with me?"

Mostly the "rec" room was the orbit around which she revolved, keeping up fresh supplies of writing-paper, newspapers and magazines, making hot drinks for girls coming off late-shifts, helping with the supper on "party" nights. The station sick-quarters knew her well, of course. And many a time she surreptitiously slipped a hot lemon-drink or a hot-water bottle into the sleeping quarters when someone had a cold.

She had what she called her "quiet room", and many a tale of heartache or petty human frailty was told there -with no need to be ashamed of tears or fear, for no one had to be brave or hard-boiled with Mrs. Mac. She took you as you were, seemed to like you, and always managed to give you some sort of comfort whether you still had faith or had lost it long ago.

Her fan mail was as big as any pinup girl's. Most of the letters began: "I wanted to thank you for looking after my girl . . ." or "I feel as though you're my friend as well as Molly's. . " They were signed by mothers, fathers, husbands and even sweethearts.

Sometimes when the girls argued about the price of something in the canteen, or grumbled because someone got sixpence a day more than they did, they'd look at Mrs. Mac. and feel ashamed. No one knew how much or how little-she had for her personal needs, and in the face of her serene unworldliness, you couldn't ask. Anyway, you can't assess in money what Mrs. Mac. and her kind give to the Service girls of today.