Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 473
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[Page 473]
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Christmas party was held on the broad green lawn in front of Victoria Barracks, in which all Army personnel and their families participared. Madge came, with Alan, and I remember that he was very scared of the red-gowned, white bearded Father Christmas, when Madge took him along to get his present.
For some months I had been trying to get transferred overseas, but the Engineer-in-Chief of the A.I.F. favoured younger officers, even for the senior posts. And by now, all the A.I.F. had been brought back from North Africa to New Guinea or New Britain, to support the Militia units already successfully countering the Japanese advances there. A temporary change of Engineers-in-Chief at Army Headquarters, Melbourn, gave me my opportunity. I was in the Engineer camp at Kapooka awaiting a posting, which came through in a few weeks. In the meantime, as this camp was near Wagga, I took the opportunity of spending a week of my accumulated leave with Mother at "Afton Water". A ruinous drought lay over most of New South Wales and lasted about eighteen months. In the South, fodder and agistment were practically unobtainable, at any price, and soon all of the Currajongs had been completely lopped (some by me) and the few willows as well. When the drought ended, Mother was left with about five hundred and fifty sheep and three or four cattle. It was a bitter and disheartening blow, as previously, Mother had been managing very well and steadily paying off a lot of the Bank debt. However, she continued on there, grimly determined to retrieve her fallen fortunes. No Governmental help was forthcoming, but the Banks were sympathetic and financially obliging.
My new posting was that of Sixth C.R.E. (Works) at Jacquinot Bay on the south coast of New Britain, where the Eleventh Australian Division had about eighty thousand Japanese Army and Navy personnel bottled up in the Gazelle Peninsular (at the eastern end of the island), most of the Japs being in and around Rabaul. On the 25th of July 1945, I journeyed by the night train to Brisbane, flew in a special R.A.A.F. transport plane, carrying some senior R.A.F. and R.A.A.F. officers, to