The Happy Warrior (8 page)

(AWM PR 88 019)

Doing Our Best

There's talk just now of leaving here,

And going to pastures new,

Of leaving all the work we've done

Behind, it just won't do.

This place is like a home to us,

We're happy and content,

We've built it up to what it is,

The time has been well spent.

We do our work, of course we do,

Yet busy tho' we be,

We, most of us, have done our bit

Working unitedly.

Of course there are some careless chaps

Who do not care a jot,

Smashing trucks and shunning work –

Efficient they are not.

It may be only want of thought,

Not realising the fact,

That all these bad marks mounting up

Can put us on the track.

Meaning to say, that those in charge

Cannot put up a fight

To keep us here, if we do not

Assist them as we might.

We all must strive to do our job

And give no chance at all

To those who'd try to put us out

And cash in on our job.

We have a very decent lot

Of officers — They're men,

Who one and all will stand by us,

If we will stand by them.

So let us do our very best

That we may still enjoy

The comfort of this best of camps,

With nothing to annoy

Pte Jim Baker

NX139320

116 Aust.Gen Trans. Coy

Marrickville, NSW, 1947

Army Days (Daze)

I said I'd join the Army

But they said, “Don't do it lad,

You'll find conditions dreadful

And I hear the food is bad.”

But being kind of willful said,

“I'll just give it a fling”,

To me the Army life appeared

To be the very thing.

But when into the showground

We were herded like the sheep,

And marched around Centennial Park

And Showground roads three deep.

I thought I'd made a big mistake,

The Army life was not

Just what it was cracked up to be,

Not by a jolly lot.

But then they sent me out at last,

To GT 116

And if I had my way at all,

It would be there I'd stick.

The only thing I did not like,

Was getting out of bed

And falling down the stairs the night

The Japs came through the Heads.

The workshop boys are all OK,

They like their fun of course,

But still they work and really are

A credit to the Force.

The drivers — well, we mend their truck

And really ought to know...

But p'raps I'd better not throw muck —

Still, we wish they'd drive more slow!

Pte Jim Baker

NX139320

116 Aust.Gen.Trans.Coy

Marrickville, NSW. 9 September,1942

“Fight 'em Back!”

When you read in daily papers of another air attack,

Do you think of all the gunners standing by

Pushing mighty stacks of ammo through the bores of every gun,

Giving hell to Tojo's bombers in the sky

When you hear of Zeros strafing, you can picture gunners laughing

As the Aussies and the Yanks hop to attack?

You can bet your bottom dollar that the yellow rat will holler,

For the ack-ack gunner's creed is “Fight 'em back!”

Who wants to be a gunner, and live beside the drome?

It's the target for tonight you cop the lot

And you haven't time to wonder as the guns are crashing thunder,

What it is that makes a shell case so darned hot!

They're the ‘Heavies' and the Bofors and the deadly point-fives too

And they're manned by Yanks and Aussies who won't crack;

So at a hundred shells a minute, sure the Japs just won't be in it,

For the ack-ack gunner's creed is, “Fight em back!”

Gunner

Without Glory

Not for us the raging combat when the blind instinctive urge

To kill and kill and kill is ever near,

When the thought of hardships suffered, in a wild ensweeping surge,

Obliterates all normal sense of fear.

Not for us the tense excitement of the coming zero-hour,

The weary thrill of savage victory gained,

The grim glad satisfaction, to have smashed the other's power,

A milestone to the final win attained.

Not for us the ringing tumult of the people's wild acclaim

As home-come heroes march through city streets,

Never decorations, medals, battle honours to our name,

No tales of epic awe-inspiring feats.

We are not the stalwart heroes of the hard held battlefront

We are not the lads with iron-seeming spines

We're an overseas works company up here to bear the brunt

Of humdrum jobs a mile behind the lines.

If it's ship with ammunition or with food for forward troops,

We are there to swiftly get it safe ashore,

While the bombers speed our tempo with their hell-for-leather sweeps

We are merry little wharfies playing war.

If the bridges need repairing or the roads are shelled to bits,

We fix them so the guns won't be delayed

Or we lump the ammo forward while the gunner starts his blitz

And try to kid ourselves we're not afraid.

We're the Army's jack-of-all-trades, and its rouseabout to boot,

There is not a job of war we haven't done;

Though we seldom see real action, and we very seldom shoot —

Just men behind the men behind the guns.

For our labour is our weapon and our symbol is our sweat,

We're average and unfit might-have-beens;

We're packhorse, navvy, wharfie, we're a motley crowd and yet

We are blokes on whom the Army gladly leans.

Without Glory, Praise or Glamour, we plug silently away,

We're humble men who fill a humble role:

We're the troops you never think of till one sudden, startled day

You send for us because you're in a hole.

“Black Bob”

(Lt A. L. O'Neill?)

Solomon Islands, November 1944

(AWM MSS 1328)

Tribute

Roar of Stuka, whine of shell,

Blast of bomb and mine as well,

Crack of rifle, whine of Spandau,

Opening up the door of hell.

This and more did not deter you

From the path you had to blaze,

Though you saw your comrades falling

Only dimly through the haze.

On you went and ever onward

Through the field of steel and gore,

Right into the new made trenches,

Diggers always to the fore.

Once again in this long struggle,

Amply backed by plane and gun,

You have proved that you are better

Than the frenzied, ruthless Hun.

Now my comrades, I salute you,

For that hard and bitter fight,

For the hardships you have suffered,

For our freedom and our right.

They shall never be forgotten,

They who sleep 'neath desert sand,

Ever may their name be sacred

In our own Australian land.

Anon

Remember -
Centaur
14 May 1943

This is a memorial to those who sleep

Before their time on unknown golden sands,

Locked with the secrets of the eternal deep,

Remote in their last rest from restless hands.

To those who, 'mid the clamours of the battlefield

Brought soothing art which many a wound has gently healed.

This is an act of thanks — to those who saved

The lives of brave men, bravely, under fire,

Who selflessly and sleeplessly have slaved

In night and day. Courage was never higher

Than in these hearts whose very veins ran living love,

Whose minds thought only duty as bombs burst above.

This is an act of thanks — for those who smiled

Where pain had creased the brow, and thinned the lips,

Whose mien was tranquil when the world was wild,

Who cheered the dullness of the Red Cross ships.

To those whose word or laugh made searing pain seem light,

Whose presence made the suffering days seem sunny bright.

A memorial to those who loved not life

E'en unto death, to those who might have stayed

To lead their gallant brethren out of strife,

But that some cruel and treacherous hand betrayed

A memorial which keeps their memory evergreen

And shouts for vengeance of the harsh inhuman scene.

The pale and anguished bosom of the deep

Sighs out its foamy sorrow on the shore,

Is restless for the souls new-laid to sleep,

Nurses whose healing hands will heal no more.

The
Centaur's
wood flows broken, useless on the wave,

Cries payment for those lives who nought but mercy gave.

Frank S. Greenop

Centaur

Skulk to your hole, you yellow-bellied cur,

Apeing the boldness of the lion without the lion's heart!

No sea seclusion will protect your hide,

No sea can be too wide or yet too deep

But that the vengeance of this outraged land

Can root you out.

Well you may rise to watch the crippled ship

That trusted to your honour — you have none.

Well you may surface and through insolent eyes

Observe the work your perfidy had wrought.

Think you so vile an act will profit you

Or rouse a flame of terror in our souls?

Reprisal! Already I can hear it on your lips.

Already I can hear you tell the world

'Twas done for some fictitious vengeance,

Some deed for which it is not possible

For us to stoop unless we hacked away all decencies.

Skulk to your hole, for your success was failure!

A few there may have been who gave to you

The benefit of doubt at recent times,

Countenancing your treacheries because

There was a possibility of doubt.

Even in the face of such atrocity,

While yet the sea was boiling where the ship

Had drawn her splendid cross beneath the calm,

A woman in a lifeboat sang.

Russell J. Oakes

New Guinea Exile

This is a land where men have fought and died.

Here in these mountains they have toiled and known

Day after day in mud, on steep cliffside,

Tangled with vines, together or alone,

Such fear as none can know who have not been

In this wild land, this hell of jungle green.

Here is a world apart from that of man;

A world in which the savage even seems

Civil and tame compared with that wild clan,

Whose savage lust, whose mad ferocious dreams

Have driven them and us to its strange shore

To fight — some to remain for evermore.

Will there, in some dim future, dawn a day

When we who led this crazy, unreal life

Waken again to see, in trim array,

The radiant form of a beloved wife,

Our children without fear, the little lawn,

And flowers in the quiet, warless dawn?

Cpl. J.J. McAuliffe

We'll Capture Tarakan

(To the tune of Lili Marlene)

Here comes the Aussies to capture Tarakan,

It is just the kick-off, we're heading for Japan.

It you could see these grim-faced men

With their mates, the RAN,

And backed up by the Air Force — We'll capture Tarakan.

Kenny has promised the Air Force a Douglas full of beer,

While the boys who do the landing can't crack it for a cheer.

All they will cop from this lousy joint

Is one long look at the water point.

But they don't buck, you know it, they'll capture Tarakan.

Resting on Manoora is Fraser and his crew,

Messing around as usual, he doesn't know what to do;

But you can bet that he enjoys

The rousing cheers from all the boys

When he sends up the munga, we'll need in Tarakan.

Where is Colonel Ainslie? About eight minutes late.

We can't stop to worry, 'cause soldiers do not wait;

We've got to climb the razor-back,

The oil fields there are on our track,

And straight from there we're heading — to capture Tarakan.

The barrage is lifting, we're just about to land,

There's fire from Nippy's pill-box, he's trying to starve our hand.

Company in position, we're all in line,

The first wave's off, we start to shine,

Then push up, from the beach-head — to capture Tarakan.

‘Oboe one' is over, we're ready for Number Two.

Throwback on your gear, Rats, we're in ‘another blue';

Though some of us may go down,

The rest will carry on without a frown.

We're sure to have the memory — of the capture of Tarakan.

Colby Corrigan.

2/48 Aust. Inf. Batt.

Dawn Patrol

The day was breaking, heralding the light of dawn,

Seeping through the foliage a new day is born;

And with creeping fingers showed up where one boy lay

Silent in Death, never again to laugh or play;

The pride of Australia, the pride of us all,

This boy had answered willingly his Country's call.

All day yesterday they had fought from dawn to dark,

Not without loss, for it had surely left its mark;

No sleep, no rest, they had been on picquet all night

But with day breaking, they still held onto this height;

Then the word came that a patrol would have to go