Chapter 3 Dive through The Narrows; Sing-sing at Morami; Just 1 chance; Rookie Camp

DIVE THROUGH THE NARROWS (Gallipoli)

HER name was AE2, and though to most Australians today the letters are a meaningless formula, in reality they preface some famous "firsts". AE2, with her sister AE1, was the first submarine operated by the R.A.N.; she was the first to sail halfway round the world - including nine thousand miles from Portsmouth to Sydney under her own power;

she was the first, and only, submarine to escort a contingent of the First A.I.F. across the Indian Ocean; and she was the first undersea craft to breach the generally-accepted impassibility of the Dardanelles.

Her captain was a R.N. man, Commander H. G. Stoker, D.S.O., who, on his own admission, joined the sub service because of the extra six shillings a day offering - certainly an inducement to a sub-lieutenant whose daily reward was five shillings. But from his boat's adventures in the Turk's backyard one suspects 2 somewhat more adventurous driving force.

Stoker's initial command was A10, a small boat of a Service in its infancy, and one of his first achievements was to ram her head-on into the Devonport dockyard wall - a precursor of those pushing tactics which were later to make him famous. Soon after, he sailed with B6, R7 and B8 to open the R.N.'s first foreign submarine station, at Gibraltar, and while there he heard of the Australian Navy's intention to acquire two submarines (E-boats) as the nucleus of a flotilla.

An immediate application for appointment to one was successful, and in 1913 Stoker found himself commanding officer of AE2(i.e. Australian E2).

He surveyed his new craft at Barrow-in-Furness with a lifting pride in his heart, and with sound reason.

She was at that time the latest class, and larger by far than any predecessor. A long, slim cigar of steel, her machinery-packed innards drove her 800 tons with 1,750 horsepower. She mounted bow torpedo tubes and carried eight torpedoes, though - and this was to prove a decided loss - no gun was fitted.

Her crew was about evenly divided between British and Australian. On 2 March 1914, after extensive trials and working-up periods, AE1 and AE2 slipped out of Portsmouth for Sydney. The trip across was uneventful, crews became thoroughly familiar with their complex craft, and by the time Batavia was reached both submarines had shaken down into efficient fighting units.

At Batavia cruiser Sydney met the pair, to tow each alternately to save fuel. Course lay through Lombok Strait, where vast flanking areas of water are funnelled at high speed. A violent whirlpool caught AE1 and swung her swiftly against the puny counter-effect of her rudder broadside on to her tow. It parted like rotten string. Helpless, the thin-skinned craft was swept across AE2's bows, a boat's length away. The latter's screws spun full astern, her rudder was hove hard-a-starb'd, and in the fiercely swirling water neither had effect. When she was about to ride up on to her consort, a fortuitous eddy swung Stoker's bow clear, and she swished past the other with about three feet to spare.

But now AE2's rudder was found to be jammed hard-over, and only skilful use of her engines prevented intimate acquaintance with nearby Lombok Island. Then a shout from his signalman swung Stoker's head astern. Charging upon them, a white cloud of foam opening at her armoured bow, was Sydney.
The tow-rope had fouled her rudder! Engine-room bells clanged urgently; only the thrust of full speed took AE2 clear of the steel knife that would have sheared her in half.

After this engaging interlude escort and convoy settled down to a routine crossing and Reef passage, and at dawn on 24 May 1914, the most powerful two submarines in the southern hemisphere slipped unobtrusively up-harbour and snuggled alongside Garden Island. They had been sixty days at sea without serious defect.

It is not the purpose of this necessarily brief

chronicle to detail both boats' operations hunting von Spec's squadron in the Pacific, or the still unexplained loss of AE1, now a steel tomb resting somewhere in the quiet depths of St George's Strait off New Britain. After von Spec had been driven from the Pacific, and his squadron finally liquidated at the Falklands, AE2's captain, champing at the bit in Sydney, applied for, and was granted, permission to proceed to European waters.

And so, on 31 December '14, the sub found herself escort to the fifteen thousand troops in massed transports which formed up in stretching array off King George's Sound and set course for the Mediterranean-and Gallipoli.

The trip across was uneventful and, on the end of a transport's tow-rope most of the way, uncomfortable. She slipped in under the lee Tenedos Island, near the mouth of the Dardanelles, and joined the British Fleet to wait for The Landing.

Every day saw additional transports, troops, munitions and supplies mounting against Gallipoli. Then the fleet moved closer, to Lemnos.

he submarine man had already submitted his plan for breaching the Straits, and at Lemnos he Admiral sent for him. When he left, Stoker had his permission "to have a go".

No one was less under illusion regarding his job than Stoker, whose study of his target had revealed extreme difficulties. The Straits are thirty-five miles long, and only half a mile wide at Chanak. Sheltering behind its defences -submarine nets, thickly-sown minefields, destroyers, gunboats, heavy shore and closely-spaced searchlights -was the Turkish Fleet, backed up by the German ships Goeben and Breslau.

Added to this lot were an old bridge hauled from Constantinople and sunk in the narrow neck off Nagara Point, its waiting steel latticework the perfect submarine trap; danger of raising periscope in a mine-field, with subsequent navigational hazard; and a constant three-to-five-knot current sweeping into the Mediterranean which, with AE2's fifty-mile submerged distance limit in still water, would force her to surface frequently.

But Stoker and his spunky crew dwelt more on what they'd do in the Sea of Marmora than on the apparently insurmountable obstacles barring their reaching there - no attempt would have been made if they had not.

With them they took an extra large White Ensign to show when they got through and, by advertising their presence, interrupt the movement of Turkish troopships transporting reinforcements to the operational areas on the Peninsula.

The first attempt was made after moonset a few days before The Landing. To the intense chagrin of all hands a diving rudder shaft broke as she was about to dive through the entrance at dawn, and the adventurers returned to base.

Early morning, Sunday, 25 April. In Mudros Harbour the masts of a vast concourse of ships reared a faint tracery against the sky. On all sides the still darkness fell wide and dense-except where a faint smother of white spawned from the water-levelled tail of a slim black shape moving, darkened and purposeful, between the lines. Once outside it altered to, the north, towards the great eyes of light that, opened from Dardanelles' cliffs and swept with their baleful glare the silvered water beneath them.

When it became possible to see clearly in their reflected light the faces of the figures on her bridge, they took a final look round, there came the subdued thump of rubber-edged doors closing, the shape settled lower in the water, until its tower shouldered a breast of white before it, then AE2 was under, and the lighted sea stretched empty.

At twenty feet she slid unseen towards the Straits, a lethal steel tube in which men pored over charts or watched gauges and dials with silent intensity. Stoker gave an order. He crouched over the periscope well, gripped his training bars as they came up, and, straightening, followed its eyepiece up with his eyes already pressed in the sockets. Through the swirling lens he saw the day.

"Depth seventy feet," he ordered. AE2 inclined slightly by the bow, levelled, came up a little, settled again and at seventy feet headed her tube-flanked nose directly for the main mine-field in the Straits' entrance.

All hands waited. Soon it came-the first scraping, starting for'ard then jolting' and knocking aft. Then on the other side-the tenuous, swaying steel coils, roots of a floating garden of death. Every instant the men inside, listening, waited for a projection on the hull to catch on a wire and, with her surge through the water, to drag the root's explosive bulb down. At that depth, already withstanding the iron-hard crush of thousands of tons of water, the added blast of H.E. would burst her open like a paper bag.

For an hour it went on, until, rising for the third time, Stoker's periscope told him they were through. It also offered information to other eyes, and inside they heard the crash of exploding shells as subdued shocks, -and the falling shrapnel as hail on their thin steel roof.

Abreast Chanak the first fruits of their ordeal presented themselves -an old battleship, destroyers in the distance, and, sliding slowly from behind the former's bulk, a small cruiser, probably a minelayer.

Stoker's orders were crisp and sure. In response a long shape exploded from the bow tube in a smother of bubbles and a finger of smooth water reached out to the cruiser.

They felt the concussion of the hit as they dived beneath a speeding destroyer. So close was he to his target, Stoker altered course to avoid catching her as she toppled.

Then followed a series of miraculous escapes. Running from the vengeful destroyers, AE2 dropped to forty feet, and the next instant slid up a mud-bank to ten feet, with a sizable portion of her upper-works obligingly out of water. Stoker peered out of his periscope, and was almost blinded by the flash of a gun peering into it! Luckily, like British ships before his day, they'd got in so close under the enemy guns that these could not depress sufficiently to bear upon them.

AE2's screws gripped the water with all their power and slowly hauled her off. She careered across the narrow neck, hounded by shells, destroyers and gunboats, grounded on the opposite shore, dragged off, had a quick peek at boats pulling in survivors from the cruiser, headed her nose up-Strait and speared through at seventy feet at full speed, trailing the hunt behind her. Another checking look placed them abreast Nagara Point-from which Leander is reputed to have begun his semi-submarine efforts - with the comparatively safe expanse of a large bay before them.

She slipped two tugs that approached dragging a sweep-wire, altered into an arm of the bay, dropped to seventy feet bottom and lay snug and safe till dark, when, on the surface, ballast tanks damaged in her amphibious leanings were plugged and repaired. All hands gratefully stretched on the upper-deck; they had been down, under continuous strain, for sixteen hours.

Stoker tried to wireless his base, but the visible signs, purply-blue sparks from the damp aerial, were the sole result. Or so they thought. Actually, the message got through, and Commodore (then) Keyes received their signal at a critical moment - during a council of war in battleship Queen Elizabeth to decide whether to evacuate landing troops, less than twenty-four hours after they had gone ashore. An affirmative decision had almost been reached, when the electrifying news that a British submarine was loose among the enemy's supply-ships decided the council to hold on.

But Stoker and his crew, lonely yet triumphant, right in the Turk's backyard, knew nothing of this. They had more immediate problems.

At dawn she dived. Two warships were sighted approaching in line ahead, each with two funnels. AE2 slid her deadly length to within five hundred yards of the nearer craft, aimed her nose and let go. But the cruiser, as she was, sighted the smooth track, altered course violently and slipped the torpedo on her starboard bow. Stoker now turned his attention to the other ship, but it was too late to bear upon her. His sulphurous thoughts are understandable - she was a Turkish battleship.

Most of that day was spent dodging and diving under fishing and small supply craft off Gallipoli town, and cursing the succulence of this prey which lack of a 4-inch gun made so obvious.

The next day was again calm, making periscope detection almost certain. Early morning brought an apparently important ship, possibly a transport, into the periscope's watered lens. She was escorted by two destroyers, one ahead and the other on her starboard beam. By a neat piece of sub-surface navigation Stoker twisted his boat in between this last escort; and when he slid his telescopic eye above water his target lay close on his port bow, fat and helpless.

To make sure he closed to two hundred let go. No one could miss at that range. The torpedo shot from its tube under the thrust of its cordite charge, and that was about as far as it got. Watching, Stoker saw it gently break surface, bob a moment, the-afloat just awash in a creaming patch of its own bubbles. A squib - the engine had failed to start.

It is not on record what the captain said to his torpedo-gunner's mate.

A destroyer was almost on them, and AE2 dived beneath her, took avoiding action, and found a sixty foot bottom to cradle her till nightfall.

In the morning Stoker surfaced and headed his bow and reloaded tubes for Constantinople and its concentration of shipping. His alarmed surprise is readily imagined when, dead ahead, a shining wet shape shouldered itself from the depths and a grinning face, undeniably British, shoved itself through a hatch and hailed him. It was E14, who'd also run the gauntlet.

This sudden appearance of their own kind made AE2'S men realize how alone, till then, they'd been. It was one of the happiest moments in her career, and it led to her death.

The other craft's captain, senior to Stoker, told him he was awaiting Admiral's orders and that Stoker should rendezvous at this spot at 1000 hours next morning. But for this order AE2 would have been one hundred miles away by that time. Both boats then separated.

Next morning, heading for the meeting, Stoker sighted a large smoke cloud. It was only a torpedo-boat at speed, and though he knew he was sighted, the captain put her under leisurely. It will be remembered depth charges were then hardly thought of, and Stoker records no attacks by them from the Turks.

Suddenly, utterly without warning, in the process of a normal dive, AE2 went berserk. She flicked her bows up and drove straight for the surface. Diving rudders were swung hard-down, with no effect. She broke surface like a floundering whale, and the torpedo boat's guns broke into flame and smoke. Stoker snapped: "Fill fore tank! " This pulled her nose down, and under she went - and kept on going, completely out of control. Eighty, ninety, one hundred feet showed on the depth gauge. "Blow water ballast! Full astern both!" Still she speared down, until the gauge needle swung hard against its stop and stayed there.

Then a cry from the Cox'n. "She's coming up, sir! " The needle reluctantly left its stop, AE2 lifted from the pressured depths, slowly at first, then under the impetus of her empty tanks shot surface-wards. Her advent there was met by two torpedoes from the torpedo boat and salvoes from a gunboat attracted to the catch.

This was decidedly unhealthy. AE2 solved the problem by abruptly standing on her nose at an acute angle and heading bottom-wards. Men swung from stanchions and wheels; mess crockery and kit spilled in a clattering stream from their lockers. "Full astern," Stoker gasped. Luckily the artificers were not thrown from their throttles and the screws spun and thrust and clawed her to a stop, then upwards. She cleared the water stern first. The Turks were waiting. A shell burst in her engine-room, two more in her tanks. She couldn't dive: she was finished.

All hands were ordered on deck. Stoker stayed below with his first lieutenant to open her cocks, and the third officer on the bridge waited to warn them of the rising water. When it was two feet from the tower he yelled, and Stoker and his Number-one, like half-drowned rats, crawled through the floating debris, up the conning-tower and jumped into the sea.

Paddling there, they watched her go. Only her stern was out. Then, slowly, gracefully, without a sound, the staunch old boat slid away on her longest and deepest dive.

She went down in fifty-five fathoms, four miles north of Kara Burnu Point in the Sea of Marmora, at 1045 hours on 3o April. All hands were picked up by the torpedo-boat, Sultan Hissar, and imprisoned.

Their spell as Guests of the Unspeakable, the Gestapo-like questioning, the attempted escapes, the long, weary years - is another story. It ended happily. On Christmas Day 718, nearly five years after he left, Commander Stoker, captain of a gallant craft and a staunch ship's company, landed safely in England. Both he and his crew are assured of their immortal niche in the annals of the silent Submarine Service.

"BOSUN'S MATE", R.A.N.

SING-SING AT MORAMI

TUCKED away in the soaring hills in the south of the island a handful of Australians operated in small parties far behind the enemy lines, ambushing, harassing and poking about for information. One night I stood with the C.O. in front of a large map which hung in a little blackout tent, and watched the light from a guttering slush-lamp flicker over contour and river, track and garden and village.

"Well, there it is, Corp," he concluded. "Divvy wants to know about enemy barge movements here", pointing to a spot on the coast, "because they might be reinforcing that way. You'll have four men, two sigs and two native guides; I suggest you put an O/PIP on this hill-" pointing again-"but that's your pigeon. O.K.?"

Late afternoon three days after found us on the outskirts of a village in the course of erection. It was still and lifeless; without exposing ourselves too much, we looked it over but could see no kanakas. Evidently they had fled into the jungle at our approach.

"My my!" I whispered to my boss-boy. "You got savvy 'long this-pella place? What name? "

The sturdy kanaka scratched his head thoughtfully.

"Im 'e close-to Morami, masta; 'im 'e no Morami true, 'im 'e close-to, tas' all."

I was about to question him further when a silent black shape armed with a Jap rifle slid from the shadows and spoke to our guide. After a while the boss-boy who had been listening in turned and told me that the tribe had but recently fled from the Japanese and were establishing a place and garden here in the hills.

Following the sentry's directions we easily found the village and were effusively greeted by the Kookari, the hereditary chieftain, for we were the first white men the villagers had seen since the coming of the Jap.

He spoke pidgin well and when I told him that we would like to stay overnight at his village, he turned to the crowd of curious kanakas which had gathered, and cried out, "Orright! Workim big-fella house longa dispella masta."

They all set off to collect material, and I couldn't help thinking, as I watched, of the times when I've stood goggle-eyed looking at the erection of a big city building; at the nonchalant dog-man swinging a hundred feet above me, the roar of concrete-mixers and staccato clatter of pneumatic drills. Here it was different, the still of twilight clamorous with the noises of the village, the marys and the monkeys (young boys) sewing the sac-sac thatch, and the musical chatter and laughter of the boys as they put up the framework of my overnight house, tying all the joints with kunda vines. Inside forty-five minutes there was a shapely, clean and waterproof little dwelling that sat amongst its surroundings as though it had grown there; the kanakas then cleared the area around it until it was spotless, and strewed ferns on the floor for us to sleep on.

I thanked the Kookari, who told us that later on there would be a feast and a sing-sing in honour of our visit to the village. I accepted his invitation gladly, for since the Japanese occupation ceremonies of this nature were rarely held; the big sing-sing houses along the Government roads had fallen into a state of ruin, the sac-sac moldered and the garamuts, the big wooden ceremonial drums, were silent. From the hut we could watch the preparations for the feast. A large fire was lit in the clearing, and on banana leaves around it was laid the food-roast kau-kau (sweet potato), pineapples, pawpaws and bananas. The Kookari apologized, as he escorted us down, because there- were no kokoruk (fowl) or pig; the Japs had stolen them all.

The feast was well under way when the entertainment began. The warriors, about thirty in all, were all armed with Jap rifles obtained by the simple expedient of cleaving the skulls of the former owners with machete or axe; they lined up in front, with behind them a motley crowd of about seventy carrying spears, bows and arrows. At a signal from the Number-one boy, the warriors began to circle menacingly around and around the bowmen, who crouched close to the ground and set up a mournful chant. The flames of the fire played over greasy bodies and distended eyes, and jingling ornaments of brass and pigs' teeth twinkled evilly in the changing light.

The dance quickened to a frenzy and the chant throbbed, rose and fell, and reached a shrieking crescendo till, at another signal, it ceased, and the dancers continued to circle in silence except for the dull thud of naked feet on the hard earth. As it proceeded, the Kookari, who sat with us, explained the meaning behind it-the warriors were the Japanese, he said, and those in the centre were the kanakas before the coming of the white soldiers' cowed, unhappy, hard-worked, but hopeless against the muskets of the enemy.

However, at another signal, the formations changed, and now the riflemen were menaced by the frenzied bowmen who leapt and grimaced horribly, brandishing their weapons. Now and then a rifleman would dart as though to break through the circle, but was hurled back to grovel on the ground.

The Kookari's quiet voice went on explaining in quaint pidgin; the word had flamed through the hills of the big fight in the north, and the kanakas took up their arms. The "Japs" crouched terrified in the centre of the whirling circle while the kanakas leapt around them, arrogant, sneering, strong in the knowledge of the white man's coming, and eager to attack and kill their former oppressors.

Suddenly a single shot was heard down the track, and all noise ceased except for four clicks as we cocked our Owen guns; with a shout the hundred dancers leapt in the air, dashed in the direction of the shot and disappeared in the darkness.

We looked at the Kookari; with a smile he spat out a wad of betel nut and told us not to worry, it was all part of the show; the shot was to represent an attack by the Japs, and all the villagers had rushed to repel it. The warriors returned, and the show was over.

As the fire flickered low I thanked the Kookari and, through him, the kanakas, and departed to turn in, followed by loud expressions of regard; but before we went to sleep, the soft harmony of hymns sung in the open around a fire, the sweetest and noblest sound on earth, came drifting up from the village, where the natives were holding their nightly church service. I couldn't help thinking that D-day in Europe with its promise of hope for enslaved millions could hardly have meant more than our coming amongst these simple, loyal people, for their D-day also was near.

Tomorrow would see us on the track again, as we still had a couple of days' walk ahead of us before we reached the coast, but that was tomorrow, and as the last chords were sung, I drifted easily into sleep.

W. ETHERIDGE, SECOND A.I.F.

JUST ONE CHANCE

THE most striking thing about the man was the wide red stripe on the lower part of his trousers. It was quite out of keeping with the pock-furrowed nose, rimless glasses and complete absence of chin, all of which added up to give him an air of vague, hopeless frustration. Bald head, attached loosely to a bull neck which housed a massive newly lanced carbuncle, indicated the thorough futility of it all. From where I stood it was easy to watch the nervous twitch of a mouth that had once been straight until a fencing scar had altered its course and pushed it over to the left side of his face. If we had not known what he was, it would have been easy to pity him. But no one did.

All Nazi generals had red stripes on their grey-green trousers, yet it would have been difficult to imagine anyone less like a general than Kurt Weisser. Dressed like the rest of us in improvised white gowns he looked like a great, proud turkey-gobbler suddenly stripped of his feathers and authority. Deprived of his uniform jacket with its blotches of ribbons, crosses and other metallic distinctions, he appeared oddly small and alarmingly unimportant. Weisser was a doctor and that afternoon had made a special plane trip from his Dresden headquarters to the prisoner-of-war camp hospital at Elsterhorst.

His mission was to watch an Australian surgeon attempt a very complicated piece of chest rearrangement - thoracoplasty. My medical dictionary said this involves the removal of varying numbers of ribs to bring about the complete collapse of a T.B. lung. The Australian was a colonel who had commanded an A.I.F. Field Ambulance with distinction in Libya, Greece and Crete. Most German Kommandants wished he had never been captured, and ,Major Zemien was no exception. Together
with several predecessors, he agreed that this Australian with a French name was a damned
nuisance and most un-German in his attitude towards discipline and its enforcement. Zemien would have given much to have been able to get rid of Colonel Edouard Lelouarn.

There must have been fourteen or fifteen of us standing in the ante-room of the enclosure that was called an operating theatre. We called it that because it was written on the door. Some of the group were Allied medical officers and orderlies, and there were at least three others who were there because they could handle two, three, and in one case four foreign languages. Some weeks before Lelouarn had persuaded Zemien to allow me to come from the neighbouring camp at Grube Erika to see the operation. It was more or less an approved social visit.

In the room itself I could see a flabby body squatting on the table and talking to Johnny Hope, a cheerful medico from Sydney's King's Cross. Johnny often pretended he was absent-minded but he was a pretty smart doctor, and Lelouarn had chosen him as his anesthetist. The fat character on the table was Markovic, the Polish captain; he looked healthy enough, and would have been too, if that wog had not got loose in his chest during a spell in solitary. The two were laughing and appeared to be talking to each other. God only knows what language they were using, because Johnny's scope as a linguist was limited to an occasional "Merde alors!" to any passing Frenchman. And Marko, so his mates said, did not even speak good Polish.

Their laughter stopped when Marko turned on his side. Johnny stuck a Novocain needle in his victim's ankle, waited a moment, and then began digging away with his scalpel. Someone explained to me that because of the patient's unusual lying position, the anesthetic was being given in the ankle; it was out of the way and gave the surgeon more freedom of movement. I had never heard of this before and it seemed that General Weisser had not either. He stood watching in silence.

Every time the red stripe spoke, Zemien would click his heels and re-adjust his spectacles. I noticed he wore a Turkish decoration which he rubbed now and then with the back of his sleeve. As the two moved back into the ante-room, the stupid incongruity dawned on me of white gowns which just hid the tops of gleaming jack-boots. Everyone seemed fairly bored and I then realized that they were only going through the preliminaries. Johnny and were now alone in the theatre.

Lelouarn was speaking and the whole room dwelt on every word. We were in his sanctum and in it he ruled unopposed. He was joking with "Bim" Allison, the little Tommy major, -and then started sorting a bundle of X-rays. I found myself staring at the pickled brain in a flat jar near the window; it had belonged to a Johnny Gurkha who had died some weeks before from the same bug. Outside, the snow was getting heavier, and I suddenly felt sorry for the miserable guard pacing up and down the wire and vainly looking f or shelter amongst the maze of pine trees; he was worse off than we were. The sirens opened up but no one seemed to hear, and I automatically prayed that the Forts would not pick today to have a go at Lautawerk-the Jerries made aluminium at Lautawerk and it was only three miles away.

Everyone in the room was silent except for two French doctors near me who muttered in fierce whispers, disputing the ownership of a packet of unsmokable "Gaulloises" lying on the floor. Weisser was scratching the air just where a normal man would have found his chin. He moved behind Lelouarn, peered at an X-ray, and spoke in rapid, high-pitched German which immediately labelled him a Saxon. Ian McCallum, a Black Watch lieutenant of Dunkirk vintage and a brilliant linguist, moved ,quietly between the two and interpreted with great patience.

"I gravely doubt the wisdom of this operation, especially under these conditions. If he were in one of our big chest hospitals it would be different."

"Damn it, how many times have I already asked you to send him to one? Both you and Zemien here have refused."

"It's out of the question. This man is a prisoner and an enemy."

"And so should not be given a chance to salvage what little is left of his life? It's obvious you are speaking as a Nazi general and not as a doctor. In any case, I'm going ahead with it. Here! Take a look at these films."

Weisser grunted and adjusted his glasses.

"Yes, yes, I've seen them, but I still think it isn't a case for thoracoplasty. The cavitation is more or less uncontrolled. Do you not agree? "

"Partly. But as you can see from this plate, the cavity is in the upper portion of the lung and it's only on one side. The other side is absolutely free. In other words, a perfect case for surgery."

"You've tried artificial pneumothorax, I take it? "

"We couldn't. There were too many adhesions between the lung and the chest wall. . . ."

They nagged at each other for ten minutes. Weisser's face had paled with anger and the Old Man was just as bad. At last the Nazi gave it up, tossed the plates on the floor and then turned to the colonel for his last thrust.

"Thoracoplasty is a drastic step."

"Captain Markovic is in a drastic condition."

"You've never attempted this operation before, of course?"

"Never."

"Even if he survives, it will deform him for all time. You must surely be aware of that."

Lelouarn's jutting chin seemed to have reached immense proportions, but now he was calm again and his voice dropped. Aloof and impartial, Ian McCallum went on - his German was perfect.

"General, suppose for one moment that you were human enough to have children of your own, which would you prefer for one of them? A slight deformation and prospect of a fairly normal life, or the other alternative, the cemetery? Wouldn't you take a chance? Look, forget this man is a Pole and all the rest of it. if you are capable of it, look at him just as another case. You really would take that one chance, wouldn't you?"

Weisser turned very slowly towards Zemien who managed to avoid his gaze and stared down at the tips of his own shining boots. In the theatre Johnny Hope was mumbling to himself and every few seconds Markovic

would let out a rasping cough. It was almost an appeal and it seemed to be burning into the Nazi. His eyes were on one of the X-rays, but I could see that he was not even looking at it. I think he was trying to smile and for a moment he seemed fascinated by a Russian pushing a barrow of coal past the window of the barracks. When he finally spoke, his voice was very low.

"Yes, Herr Oberfeldarzt, I think I would take that one chance."

He paused. "Yes, I'm sure I would. Now that I give it more thought.

In a few seconds, arms were being scrubbed and instruments taken from primitive autoclaves. David Williams, the Kiwi, and Jock Callister from Cape Town, had been detailed to assist. So had Duncan Waters of Manchester.

An Empire set-up, if you like. Inside, Johnny was fixing a needle into a vein in Marko's ankle, and from it ran a rubber tube which was connected to an ampoule of something.

There was a small controlling tap near it. Harry Smythe, wise-cracking sergeant from the 2 / 5 t h A.G.H., fussed about the room, firmly pushed Weisser and Zemien to one side, and then opened a canister with some sort of gloves for the surgeon and his team.

Behind his mask Harry, was whistling "Oh Johnny" and we all sniggered when the anesthetist looked up quickly from his needle. From his awkward lying position Markovic looked into the eyes of the Australian colonel and smiled. When Johnny Hope glanced up, the Old Man nodded. I saw the tap turn and watched the liquid running down the tube and through the needle. A scalpel appeared and the game was on.

Three hours later Lelouarn threw his gloves and mask to the floor and asked me for a cigarette. It was a signal for us to return to reality and start breathing again. Weisser tried to speak but failed. He just stared at Lelouarn, unbelieving and shaking his head. Then he moved out through the door without uttering a word. A Tommy handed each of us a pannikin of tea. Harry Smythe was whistling again but stopped to tell us a story about a deaf and dumb man who was explaining to his wife that he was off to a football match. Then came a touch on my shoulder. It was my guard, consumptive, limping Gefreiter Zimmerman who beckoned me into the corridor. He pointed to his watch and said it was time to go home.

The snow was very thick and when it became apparent that he had no chance of pushing his bike, I told him to squat on the bar, and proceeded to double him along the path through the pine forest. What I had just seen was too memorable ever to be forgotten.

Even in prison camps there were various means of getting to hear about things and people, and it was quite by accident that I overheard two German medical officers some months later talking about General Weisser.

One of them said that Weisser's youngest daughter had died from T.B. of the chest. It appeared that her father had refused permission for a specialist to operate.

This Australian colonel really exists. He got the OBE and a French decoration for his work in Germany, as well as a couple of "mentions". His name is not Lelouarn, but the thousands of Allied prisoners who passed through his hands at Elsterhorst will always want to remember him.

IVAN CHAPMAN, SECOND A.I.F.

ROOKIE CAMP

ALTHOUGH our trans-Pacific run in the Mariposa had been singularly free from anything resembling enemy activity, we were glad to set foot once more on Mother Earth. The Tommy troops aboard had a good word to describe the trip-"binding", they called it, and binding it certainly was. We were bound by fire-drill laws, out-of-bounds laws, boat-drill laws, blackout laws, no smoking laws, fatigue laws, and various others, till it appeared that mother-in-laws were the only ones they'd forgotten.

We'd spent the trip overdoing the usual things servicemen did on troopers-playing swy, cadging smokes from the Yanks, swiping canteen stores while on carrying fatigues, and so on. These things had palled though; towards the end. Even the fun of photographing the forbidden Panama Canal area, under the noses of armed guards, didn't have the thrill we'd expected. In the words of the song "We were awful sick of the sea."

As our ship nosed its way through the murky fog settled on Boston Harbour some one cracked something about "steam from some tea-party they'd held there". Right after that a kitbag cracked down on his skull, and he nearly went overboard.

Best blues were to be seen on every side, all Aussies aboard being eager to see this land of the almighty dollar, and, perchance, to ample a plate of steak and eggs after the unappetizing shipboard cuisine. As a result the queue for tea was short, and the poor beggars "who did go down soon came up again, dejectedly bouncing saveloys on the deck. It appeared that the cook's home port was Boston, and he'd just managed to get the savs covered with cold water before blowing through to see his wife and family.

Then the blow fell! The Tannoy broke the air and its message though brief was unmistakable. In effect it was that all Americans might go ashore for the night, and all Australians would remain on board.

Three hundred voices rose in protest, and three hundred blue-clad bodies hustled towards the gangplank - the Orderly Officer couldn't stop them! Perhaps he couldn't, but he knew who could.

Quick as a flash he signalled to two nearby American service police. "Shoot the first man to put his foot ashore!" he yelled, and disappeared to find the O.C. Troops.

One look into the muzzles of two levelled Tommy guns and the boys decided the view wouldn't be worth the risk, and reluctantly turned back. At least those at the front of the mob did. We at the back, oblivious to all this "whites of their eyes" business, were behaving like a mob of women at a bargain sale, and shoving forward for all we were worth.

Within two feet of being wounded where they couldn't show it, the two most shoreward rebels were relieved to find the pressure lifted as the O.C. Troops arrived. Without going into any detail it will suffice to say that we did not get ashore that night.

Finally, however, we made it at ten the next morning - off the ship straight on to a troop train. As we steamed out one of the Yank guards yelled to us that we were going to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, a rookies' "toughening-up camp". After all our tribulations this was too much, and strong men almost wept. Even the sight of scores of American girls waving frantically to us and shouting lovely invitations didn't cheer us up. What were the good of invitations, with the train doing sixty miles an hour!

At that speed it did not take long to cover the distance to our stopping-place, and after detraining, fast trucks took us to the camp. We had a meal on the train, and as it was well after dark when we had claimed our kit, most of us decided to call it a day.

A Yank private offered to show our squad to the sleeping-hut. "Toughening up," I thought. "Hey-ho, for the straw-filled palliasse."

"This is it, guys," said our guide. "You'll find everything in there. G'night."

For my part I was too surprised to answer him. From the outside our hut looked like a huge barn, double storeyed, with a flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Electric lights gleamed through the six side windows.

Once inside the place, and I was sure that the Yank must have mistaken three stripes for officer's insignia. There were fifteen double-tiered bunks on either side of the room, beds, with sheets turned back, and snowy white pillows, just waiting for a tired airman's head. It was summer so the stove was not lit, but by the indoor stairs to the top floor a radio was playing a dance tune.

"Just come and have a look at this!" called one of the more inquisitive members of the gang. Two steps down from the end of the sleeping-quarters, and a part of the building. was the wash-room. Wash-room! Boy, was that an understatement! Six gleaming porcelain basins with hot and cold taps, which worked, stood under a ten-foot-long equally gleaming mirror at one end of the room. Down one side of it were six separate shower recesses fully equipped, even to a cake of soap in each. The other side was occupied by half a dozen "Watcha-ma-call-its", equally well furnished, and done out in cream and green.

This was too much for our systems. We hit the beds, wondering what other hardships these poor troops had to put up with for democracy. "As good as a pub," a tired Aussie was heard to mutter as he slid down between the sheets.

After all the excitement we slept in, and by the time we had tried out the showers it was too late to get any breakfast. This was more than disappointing as that meal we'd had on the train seemed an awful long time ago. We quizzed a passing buck private.

"Sure, boys, and didn't someone tell youse about the cafeteria? It's straight up this road aways, you can't miss it." We were off before he'd finished talking. Over a satisfying meal of bacon and eggs we talked things over with the waitress - pretty she was, too. It appears that sleeping in is a complaint common to all servicemen and, to make sure that no rookie missed his breakfast because of it, the cafeteria was installed, the only penalty being that you had to pay for what you ate. Poultry, fish, crabmeat-these were a few of the things listed on the menu.

Having satisfied our appetites for the present we sallied forth to find that we were not required until the afternoon, and so decided to take this "toughening-up" place in properly.

Another guide obliged by showing the way to the PX-Post Exchange, that means. Its function as near as I can explain is the equivalent of our canteen. 'Nine varieties of ice-cream were on sale, and the soldiers behind the counters were doing a roaring business. Automatic containers dropped a wax paper ~up and filled it with Coca-Cola on the insertion of a dime.

At one counter items ranging from a D.F.C. ribbon to a suitcase could be bought. Some of the more financial members of our set bought several of the latter. Juke boxes at either end of the room ground out a selection of twelve tunes. At least it was a selection until the R.A.A.F. got in there. As far as we were concerned at the time "Pistol Packin' Mama" was the height of musical enjoyment, and the pleasure was doubled to find a record of it in each of the juke boxes. It no sooner finished at one end of the room than an Aussie put his nickel in the machine at the other end of the room, and it was on again. Although the Americans did nothing about it other than scowl, we found when we returned from leave later, that in our absence both records had been replaced.

One of the chief money-making devices in the PX was a "Nickel-in-the-slot-shoot-down-the-enemy" machine. A machine-gun-shaped torch shone a beam of light on to a ground glass plate across which shot outlines of midget planes at varying heights and in varying directions. When the beam of light struck a plane, a bell rang, and the tally shone on a score board. I fluked a thirty-eight, which wasn't beaten while I was there.

After a while we had exhausted the wonders of the PX, so strolled over to another canteen which sold nothing but beer and saveloy rolls. It didn't need to sell anything else; you could hardly get in the doors as it was and I began to wonder if it were compulsory to turn up to these rookie classes, or if you might please yourself. A nearby Yank, for the price of a glass, assured me it was compulsory.

Even the best of things must come to an end and at midday we were ejected from the canteen while the staff had some lunch; not saveloy rolls, I am prepared to bet.

Seeking the hitherto ignored mess, we passed a huge theatre-like building, which we decided must be the gymnasium. It turned out that the place was what it looked like, and in fact was the theatre where the troops saw three changes of shows a week, free of charge. (I hope all you permanent R.A.A.F. C.0's are taking all this to heart!)

After a little official organization in the afternoon we were told that owing to an unforeseen hitch we were not to be let loose on poor unsuspecting New York until the following day. We had lots more to see, and did not mind in the least. Near the cafeteria were some very comfortable looking buildings, and inside a fatigue party was busily putting up rows of equally comfortable looking seats. We were informed that a concert party was making a bi-weekly visit that night, and we were all invited to participate in the goings on. While some of the more studious types penned letters home, I sat in a very cosy arm-chair in the mezzanine and viewed with interest the first piece of organized work I'd seen in the camp.

After a cafeteria tea many of us returned to the concert hall, and thoroughly enjoyed a first-rate show put on by a professional company. At the conclusion of the show some of the American chaps asked would we like to come over to the dance.

"Fair enough," we said, and off we went. The dance floor took up the whole of the top floor of a two-storey building set in a. park at one side of the camp. The dances of course were different to the ones we knew, but this did not stop some of the more adventurous from trying their hands, or legs, at them. Meantime we explored the ground floor, which was a jewellery store, plus druggist's, plus milk-bar. When one of our chaps commented that the only thing that seemed to be missing was a photographer, we were! told that we must have missed that, because a photographer had his studio at one end of the PX. On investigation we found this to be a fact!

Supper was laid on free of charge, and then when those lucky enough to find and keep a girl to themselves tried out some of the seats in the park, we lesser fry sought the welcome sheets again.

Once in bed a discussion on the American way of training took place. The chap on one side of me decided there and then that, if only he could have his girl-friend come to see him, he would not want to leave the camp, at all. From the bunk under me a nasal drawl informed the hut at large, and the disgruntled one in particular, that "you can get a pass; at the guard-house for your dame to come into, the camp six nights a week until midnight, and would someone switch off those goddam lights".

The passing of the years has dimmed many memories of those good old service days but, as I have taken these notes from my diary, I know them to be fact and not pipedreams. Since I read some time ago that Monty has decided to give the Tommy more entertainment facilities in his spare time, I have wondered if he, like me, once spent a day in a U.S. rookie camp.

ALAN M. STEPHENS, R.A.A.F.

HIGH ROAD VENGEANCE

THE first batch of Italian prisoners of war were arriving in Palestine from the Western Desert in early '41. Detraining at El Mejdel, they were being driven by a convoy of trucks to the new P.O.W. camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Belonging to an Arab bus company, the trucks were driven by Arabs. Each vehicle was accompanied by two Australian guards who rode in the back and a corporal who rode in the front with the Arab driver.

Dark, the corporal selected for this particular trip, was an Itie-hater of the greatest magnitude whose chief hobby was abusing the ancestry of those worthy gentry - what he would not do to those blankety-blank Ities when he got the chance was nobody's business. However, he took good care that he remained safely behind in Palestine, and kept well away from the blue in the Desert, preferring to wreak his deadly vengeance on the foe as they retreated unarmed to their prison confines.

His was the leading truck in the convoy and, loaded with the latest batch of Musso warriors, it began its long winding journey to the camp.

Before the lumbering vehicle had climbed up on to the main Gaza-Jerusalem highway, the two-striped one had entered upon his customary "hate". His abuse was particularly aroused by the inclusion of some half-dozen Italian airmen among his truck-load of prisoners. This set him going properly.

As it was Italian bombers that had given Palestine its only real taste of the war, Dark was particularly hostile towards the airmen, not because of the damage they had done but because they had brought the war a little too close for Dark's liking. As the heavily laden bus rumbled along the stony Wog road Dark commenced treating the unfortunate Arab driver to an unmerciful ear-bashing about what the low so-and-so Itie airmen had done to Tel Aviv and Haifa in their recent raids.

Now, it so happened that this Arab driver had a brother who was killed in the first Tel Aviv bombing, and Dark's searing outbursts and curses about the Italian airmen did not altogether fall upon deaf ears; it was not very long before an intense hatred was worked up within the son of Allah. Not only did he become filled with hate but, unfortunately for Dark, he became very thoughtful. The idea of providing safe passage for a truck-load of enemy airmen, any one of whom could have killed his brother, was, to his way of thinking, not what a true Moslem should be doing. In fact he became most demonstrative. He swore by all the gods that vengeance would be his-and very soon, too!

It was not long before the spluttering and groaning of the old Arab truck was drowned by the furious noise that prevailed within the cabin. Over the old steering-wheel the driver was holding forth in a strange mixture of Arabic, English and any other lingo he could call to mind, while on the other side Dark was bellowing to the four winds about what he ought to do to such a load, of enemy swine.

Never before had Italian ancestry suffered so harshly at the tongues of two hate-holders. For an hour, while the Arab leaned fiercely over the steering-wheel and spurred the old vehicle on like a mad thing, the great verbal assault raged within the confines of the truck cabin, the tempo of the discourse quickening with the passing of each kilometer stone along the roadside. The only difference between the two hate-holders was that the Arab's hate was by far the more genuine.

A sudden fall of rain failed to dampen the fiery ardour of the two in the truck cabin, but one thing it did accomplish was to make the road slippery. In fact the surface of the road became very treacherous as the vehicle swerved dangerously round the hilly bends; as the Arab's intense lust for revenge increased, so did the speed of the vehicle until its safety margin had been well and truly surpassed.

It was at this stage of the journey that Dark became alarmed, and in the interests of personal safety decided to abandon all further abuse of Italian aeronautical achievements. But, too late-the deed had been done! The Arab by this time was in a state of complete frenzy. With fury mounting in his bio, Bedouin eves, he heaped great curses upon the Italian prisoners.

Ahead of them loomed the Seven Sisters, a unique and extremely dangerous series of steep hills. They were treacherous enough under good driving conditions, but infinitely worse when the roads were wet and slippery, and Dark was thinking about the Seven Sisters. So was the Arab.

For a brief moment nobody in the cabin spoke. Then the Arab said something that lent a cold shudder down Dark's spine. He told Dark that his unworthy life was of little value and that he would gladly sacrifice it to secure revenge for the death of his brother. He would run the truck over the Seven Sisters!

Dark went cold. By contrast the driver went all hot-and deadly serious. Quite firmly reconciled to his sacrifice, he was now in the midst of offering final prayers to Allah and swearing by all his father's and his father's father's asses and wives, that vengeance would soon be his. Dark was also praying. But not to Allah.

The wearer of two stripes embarked upon a brief review of his life and decided he was far too young to die. For a short moment he rallied and sought to regain control of the situation, but without result. The Arab would have no part in a reconciliation. It appeared that, having finally prepared himself to meet his forefathers, there was no possible way out for him but to proceed with the sacrifice.

By now Dark was beyond thought. Convinced that nothing short of direct action would save the situation, he was about to make a lunge at the ignition switch and the hand brake, but the glinting dagger at the side of the Arab and the fiery look upon the bearded countenance made him decide otherwise. Soon he too was almost reconciled to the inevitability of joining his ancestors; by the way the Arab was frothing at the mouth and madly throwing his hands about, Dark was expecting to see the truck leave the highway even before it reached the dreaded Seven Sisters. At this stage he was spellbound; he couldn't speak.

The Seven Sisters were less than a hundred yards away when, suddenly, the Arab began to curse. Dark peered hopefully ahead. A Gaza-bound leave bus loomed up around the narrow bend in the road ahead just at the entrance to the fateful hills. It blocked the truck which came to a sudden halt.

In a flash Dark was out of the cabin, and after his earnest and wild-eyed representations to the officer in charge of the other vehicle, the ranting Arab was quickly relieved. And so was Dark, but in a different way-a sadder and very much wiser rabble-rouser.

That was in the winter of '4 1. The war is over now, and those days are far behind. Dark is still an Itie-hating lug-punisher, but the lesson he learned the hard way still sticks with him. Even now, when risks of repercussions are reasonably remote, he selects his victims with extreme care and much wisdom!

B. J. T. STONE, SECOND A.I.F.