The Happy Warrior (10 page)

Back in Woodside Camp in threes.

In the days when life was rosy,

Full of laughter, love and beer,

And I never thought I'd see them

Carried down a gangplank here.

Well they've done their best for England,

And they've done their best for home,

For the girls they left behind them

And the pals across the foam;

And may Australia not forget them

When they are invalided back,

Nor leave them, poor and jobless,

For the dole queue or the track.

Anon

The Emperor: 1945

Oh, fearful he who plays the game

Of treachery and strife,

With free men's license now to count

The cost of human life!

'Tis not the Khan's armada

That presses to the shore,

But vengeance, dark, within these ships

That stand outside the door.

Oh wasted Kamikaze!

Divine warriors from the sky!

You fell like cherry blossoms

And like cherry blossoms … died.

Now a sun god shrinks from black defeat,

And an Emperor quakes as his empire shrinks;

No majesty, no honour, no mystery now,

Just the muffled drum of a lone heartbeat.

Grahame Fooks

PM7560

Grahame Fooks served on HMAS Quickmatch from 1944 - 1946 and, as part of Task Force 57 on ‘Operation Iceberg,' had first hand experience of Kamikaze attacks on the fleet.

Quickmatch

The oily water laps her sides

In the blackness of the night;

Asleep, her breathing can be felt

And she's restless for the light

“Let go forward! Let go aft!”

She shudders at the cry,

Slips out to sea with an eager look,

For it's where her pleasures lie.

She dips her bow in salute to the waves

And they become as one,

While the bos'n's pipe is lost in the wind

And her shrouds sing a song to the sun.

Grahame Fooks

PM 7560

The Tale of Tobruk

We got in a ship and sailed out to the sea

And each of us then were in spirits of glee,

For 'twas farewell to Egypt and old King Farouk;

We were bound for the beautiful town of Tobruk.

A night and a day we sailed over the waves

Then arrived in Tobruk with its harbour of graves.

There were ships all around us, but sad to relate

They were all under water — a terrible state.

We gazed and we thought as our eyes met that sight

Of all the good ships in that terrible plight.

There were British and Jerries and Ities galore;

Oh! the price that we pay when we're going to war!

Now we sighted this town which before us did lie

And most of us then heaved a mighty big sigh,

For this was our home right down to the sea

And none of us knew for how long it would be.

We walked through the streets 'twas a pitiful sight,

Each shop in a turmoil, just a ragman's delight;

Devastation lay around us where the bombs had come down —

Man's folly had wrecked this once beautiful town.

As the weeks passed to months and the weather grew hot,

Each mother's son groused at his terrible lot,

With fags unobtainable and no hope of beer

We all cursed the man who had sent us out here.

We worked with a will and enjoyed all the fun,

For the Ities turned tail and started to run,

But we worked just as hard, we couldn't relax,

For our troops reached Bengazi and stopped in their tracks.

They had fought a long way their strength was depleted,

When they met Jerry's army our boys soon retreated

For Jerry was strong and fresh in the fray,

We were vastly outnumbered that tragical day.

You've all heard the story of the thin long red line —

Our boy's rearguard action was equally fine;

But the tenth day of April, the bugle was sounded,

Alas and alack — Tobruk was surrounded!

We couldn't surrender, our morale was still high

When suddenly there came a roar in the sky;

They machine gunned us and bombed us and shelled us as well,

To be in Tobruk was like living in hell.

We all now look forward to that glorious day

When once more on a ship we shall sail out the bay,

And as we glide out we shall take a last look

At the wreck that was once the proud town of Tobruk.

Sgt John Patrick Hampton
 

9th Aust. Div. Salvage Section 

(AWM PR 00759)

The Raid Song

Here they come, their bombs to rain

Lurid lingo's merely vain

So we'll sing this old refrain:

“The rotten bastard's here again.”

When the sirens weirdly wail

Even heroes, they turn pale,

Phar Lap who we never fail

Funk homeward setting sail

In the drowsy heat of noon

Or beneath the silver moon,

When we hear the dreaded tune

It's under cover bloody soon;

In the night we rise from bed

When we hear them overhead

If no pants on, let it be said

We've each a tin hat on our head;

Loafers drop their tired roles

It's a tune when no one ‘poles'

Rabbits, rats or bloody moles —

We can beat them to their holes

When ack-ack starts to roar

Downwards bombs they start to pour

Deeper still we try to bore

No one ever shouts “Encore!”

Hear the flaming crash of guns,

Bombs are dropping by the tons,

Duck your head, now here she comes —

‘Blast', the Dagoes or the Huns

But they fall like April rain

Soon the ‘All Clear', sounds again

So once again the old refrain:

“The rotten bastard's gone again!”

Sgt LK Bailey

4 M Batt.

(AWM PR 00526)

Action

The twenty five pounders flash & roar,

Their defiance they tell to the Hun,

The mortar bombs whistle, as upwards they roar

And the fun has only begun.

Yes, the fun has only begun lads,

Just wait till the break of day

For then we shall see at the end of the spree,

The enemy running away.

The ‘Vickers' guns chatter in bursts loud & long

And the gunners chuckle with glee,

While the Brens & Tommy guns sing their songs

Where the bullets are flying free.

The shrapnel is bursting right overhead

With a rush of flying steel

And the air is filled with the droning lead,

Its breath on your cheeks you feel.

The Lee-Enfield rifles flare & crash

And the line is a line of fire

While the enemy sends his bullets bash

As our men advance to the wire.

Our boys go up to his wire by loads

That fence so cruel & strong

But the boys are bright this deathly night,

On each one's lips is a song.

And now its the Engineers turn to shine;

They crawl forward with bated breath

While away on the right explodes a mine

And someone meets his death.

Now the ‘Bangalores' blow with a deafening crash

And the wire goes sky high,

And the charge is reckless & sometimes rash

As the boys from the South go by.

The Bayonets flash in the moonlight clear

As they storm the sangars built

By the Dago & Fritz in the months they've been here,

And the steel goes home to the hilt.

Yes, the steel goes home to the hilt my lads,

And many close their eyes

In death in the field where they would not yield,

They will never see sunrise.

The fighting is fierce & deadly & hot

The bayonets are dripping red,

And the air is heavy with shell & shot

While the ground is strewn with dead

But the battle is over the victory ours

The enemy is in full flight

And we look back with pride & the last few hours

As the eastern sky turns bright.

Though many a comrade has fallen tonight

And our hearts for their loved ones bleed,

We know that they fell in a glorious fight

In the hour of their country's need.

In the hour of their country's need, my lads,

No braver you'll find here;

Through the world will run those deeds they done,

Those comrades tried & dear.

As the rising sun mounts into the blue

And the shadows swiftly fly,

The stretcher bearers come two by two

As they bring the wounded by.

While the men go back to their well earned rest

Proud of the victory won,

And the land for which they gave of their best

Will bless each Mother's son.

N. C. Lord

NA.25906

(AWM PR 00526)

The ‘Isle of Doom'

Here I sit on the Isle of Crete

Bludging on my blistered feet,

Little wonder I've got the blues

With my feet encased in big canoes

In khaki shorts instead of slacks

Living like a tribe of blacks

Except that blacks don't sit & brood

And wait throughout the day for food.

'Twas just a month ago — not more —

We sailed to Greece to win the war

We marched and groaned beneath our load

While bombers bombed us off the road.

They chased us here, they chased us there,

The bastards chased us everywhere

And while they dropped their loads of death

We cursed the bloody RAF.

The RAF was there in force

— They left a few at home of course —

We saw the entire force one day

When a Spitfire spat the other way.

Then we heard the wireless news

When portly Winston, gave his views

He said the RAF's in Greece

Fighting hard to give us peace.

And then we scratched our heads & thought

This sounds distinctly like a “rort”,

For if in Greece the Air Force be

Where the bloody hell are we?

And then at last we met the Hun

At odds of thirty-three to one

And though he made it bloody hot

We gave the bastard all we got.

The bullets whizzed, the big guns roared

We howled for ships, to get aboard,

At last they came and on we got

And hurried from that cursed spot.

Then they landed us in Crete

And marched us off our bloody feet;

The food was light the water crook,

I got fed up and slung my hook.

Returned that night full of wine

And next day copped a fiver fine

My paybook was behind to hell

So when pay was called I said, “Oh hell!'

They wont pay me I'm sure of that!”

But when they did, I smelt a rat.

But when next day the rations came

I realized their wily game,

For sooner than sit down and die

We spent our ‘dough' on food supply

So now it looks like even betting

A man will soon become a Cretan,

And spend his days in black & gloom

On Adolf Hitler's ‘Isle of Doom'.

Anon

(AWM PR 00526)

AIF Brigade

Cherished sons and bloody crooks,

Oxford Dons with learned looks,

Farmer boys and city rooks,

Clever clerks and greasy cooks,

Boundary riders, station owners,

Out of work and fate bemoaners,

Pianists and poor tromboners,

Butchers, bakers, float-a-loaners,

Bagmen, bludgers and school teachers,

Civil servants, sons of preachers,

Navvies, touts and social leaches,

Everything from bush to beaches,

Con-men, cabbies, counter jumpers,

Men who used to pick up dumpers,

Paper peddlers, petrol pumpers,

Policemen, painters, wild wharf lumpers,

Pugilists and poker players,

Pensive poets, pious prayers,

Boarders who were not good stayers,

Bookies who were not good payers:

We joined the bloody AIF,

To every warning we were deaf;

We started off a motley crew

Like ingredients of Irish stew.

We consisted of the best and worst,

Sometimes prayed, mostly cursed,

From every walk of life became

Soldiers, treated all the same.

In training learned to give and take

For every bloody body's sake,

Shared our joys and shared our fears,

Shared our girls and shared our beers.

We staggered down the city street,

We fought and spewed and lost our feet,

Taunted ‘Chocos', wrecked cafes,

Made a name that stank always.

We trained and learned the art of war,

Often weary and footsore,

Our former lives began to fade

As into soldiers we were made.

Soon we came to embarkation,

‘Soldiers' in our estimation,

A title that is only earned

By lessons but in action learned.

We crammed aboard the sweaty ship

And sweated right throughout the trip,

Soldiers crammed from stem to stern,

Hardly room to twist or turn.

We misbehaved ourselves in Perth,

Most hospitable city on earth,

Played merry hell in Old Capetown,

Likewise Durban, also Freetown.

We kissed the girls in Blighty,

And mixed with high society,

Got gloriously drunk without much dough,

They insisted on paying — we let them go.