Voices from the Air (43 page)

By the harbour at Tobruk, Chester Wilmot scans the skies for enemy planes with microphone in hand. September 1941. (ABC Archives)

Bill MacFarlane plays back a recording of Scottish gunners at Tobruk. September 1941. (NAA/ABC Archives)

One of Wilmot's original scripts from Tobruk,
Front-line Post
. The script shows Wilmot's corrections and workings and the stamp of the military censor, passing the script for broadcast. Written in Tobruk by Chester Wilmot, 29 September 1941. (NAA)

Henry Stokes, a former Reuters and newspaper correspondent, was one of the most experienced ABC war correspondents. He covered the Spanish Civil War and the Balkans during the Second World War before returning to Australia. He was the ABC and BBC correspondent in Singapore and escaped just before the British surrender. (Photo courtesy Meredith Stokes)

The ABC truck bogged in the forward area in Papua. Believed to be the day before Bill MacFarlane drove Wilmot, Damien Parer and Osmar White to the foothills leading to the Kokoda Trail. It's possible that Wilmot is one of those in the photo. 18 August 1942. (AWM)

Peter Hemery (without shirt) recording in the Northern Territory. At one stage Hemery operated the recording equipment himself when the technician Ed Jinks fell ill. The car immediately behind him is probably the ‘old green grass-hopper', the bullet-holed sedan commandeered by the field unit. 1943. (NAA/ABC Archives)

Peter Hemery, ABC war correspondent 1942–1943 (Photo courtesy Peter Hemery)

Peter Hemery talking to a Kittyhawk pilot about his tactics against Japanese fighters. Hemery stayed with Kittyhawk squadrons in the Northern Territory and recorded the daily activities of Australian and American flyers. 1943. (NAA/ABC Archives)

Bill Marien, ABC war correspondent 1942–1944 (NAA/ABC Archives)

Bill Marien writing a despatch while seated on a wrecked Japanese plane near Lae. Marien entered Lae immediately behind the troops of the Australian 7th Division who were the first into the town. ‘Smashed planes garlanded the runway and revetments like a bedraggled necklace of faded owers,' wrote Marien. September 1943. (ABC Archives)

Dudley Leggett (second from right) after a press conference in the model room at Headquarters, New Guinea Force in Port Moresby. Left to right are: Colonel JH Rasmussen, Acting Director General Public Relations; General Sir Thomas Blamey; Leggett; and Major D Dwyer, personal assistant to Blamey. 13 September 1943. (AWM)