Forget about all the attention given to Dad’s Army, my mother and her sister helped overthrow the Japanese in the Pacific. Both of them made springs for the landing gear of Beaufort bombers which were built in Australia . It has been stated that if Australia had been able to send 500 Beaufort - torpedo bombers to Singapore when the Japanese invaded Malaya in January l942, the outcome of the war could have been vastly different in the Pacific . As it was, the first seven Australian built Beauforts were rushed to Singapore.
I was recently able to inform my mother, in a Brisbane retirement home, of the part played by the Australian aircraft industry during WW11, especially that of the Beauforts . From an article in the June 21,l945 British Flight and Aircraft Magazine , written by John Storey, director of Beaufort, Beaufighter and Lancaster production in Australia., I read her details of the wartime activities of the planes.
According to Storey , Beauforts carried out the lion’s share of the work in the Pacific: as torpedo carriers attacking enemy shipping; in bombing raids on important enemy bases such as Rabaul,Gasmata, Kavieng, Buin, Faisi, Paronga, Wewak and Timor. Beauforts patrolled 12,000 miles of coastline and convoyed Allied shipping carrying many millions of pounds' worth of munitions and supplies and hundreds of thousands of troops. The first Beaufort squadron went into action near Lae in New Guinea in June l942, sinking a Japanese supply ship ,Tenyo Maru. .The same squadron sank a merchantman off Milne Bay and inflicted damage or sank other naval vessels in major battles
Mother told how she and her sister , Val, both wearing bib and brace , were part of a team of Sydney women who produced parts for the bomber. There being shift work, Aunty Val, felt tired one night , so slipped into the boardroom and slept on the table. Mum operated a machine which removed burrs from the springs for the National Motor Spring Company . A wartime poster for Beaufort bombers was displayed in Darwin last year.
My mother and I lived on the waterfront at Kirribilli during the war with a French woman from New Caledonia who taught me how to count to 10 in French .. Because she was an alien, she had to report to police once a week , and each time emphatically stated France would rise again. She resorted to coarse Australian language, calling me a little swine after a kitten I brought home shat on the carpet.
Mum was attending a dance in the city when Japanese submarines invaded Sydney Harbour. The driver of the tram she caught home was instructed to turn out the lights and cross the bridge as fast as he could .
I was recently able to inform my mother, in a Brisbane retirement home, of the part played by the Australian aircraft industry during WW11, especially that of the Beauforts . From an article in the June 21,l945 British Flight and Aircraft Magazine , written by John Storey, director of Beaufort, Beaufighter and Lancaster production in Australia., I read her details of the wartime activities of the planes.
According to Storey , Beauforts carried out the lion’s share of the work in the Pacific: as torpedo carriers attacking enemy shipping; in bombing raids on important enemy bases such as Rabaul,Gasmata, Kavieng, Buin, Faisi, Paronga, Wewak and Timor. Beauforts patrolled 12,000 miles of coastline and convoyed Allied shipping carrying many millions of pounds' worth of munitions and supplies and hundreds of thousands of troops. The first Beaufort squadron went into action near Lae in New Guinea in June l942, sinking a Japanese supply ship ,Tenyo Maru. .The same squadron sank a merchantman off Milne Bay and inflicted damage or sank other naval vessels in major battles
Mother told how she and her sister , Val, both wearing bib and brace , were part of a team of Sydney women who produced parts for the bomber. There being shift work, Aunty Val, felt tired one night , so slipped into the boardroom and slept on the table. Mum operated a machine which removed burrs from the springs for the National Motor Spring Company . A wartime poster for Beaufort bombers was displayed in Darwin last year.
My mother and I lived on the waterfront at Kirribilli during the war with a French woman from New Caledonia who taught me how to count to 10 in French .. Because she was an alien, she had to report to police once a week , and each time emphatically stated France would rise again. She resorted to coarse Australian language, calling me a little swine after a kitten I brought home shat on the carpet.
Mum was attending a dance in the city when Japanese submarines invaded Sydney Harbour. The driver of the tram she caught home was instructed to turn out the lights and cross the bridge as fast as he could .
