HART, Noel Arnold
| Service Number: | NX106026 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 27 July 1942 |
| Last Rank: | Sergeant |
| Last Unit: | Not yet discovered |
| Born: | Haberfield, New South Wales, Australia, 24 December 1917 |
| Home Town: | Ballina, Ballina, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Pilliga Public School, New South Wales, Australia |
| Occupation: | Electrician |
| Died: | Guillain-Barre syndrome, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia, 13 August 2011, aged 93 years |
| Cemetery: | Not yet discovered |
| Memorials: |
World War 2 Service
| 27 Jul 1942: | Enlisted Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Sergeant, NX106026 | |
|---|---|---|
| 15 Apr 1943: | Promoted Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Sergeant | |
| 4 Jun 1945: | Discharged Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Sergeant, NX106026 |
Noel Hart, Inventor
My father was always a problem solver and was frequently approached for assistance to many country people. He volunteered with several friends during WWII in Sydney and went through basic training at North Head. After training and as a result of his professional history as a specialist in radio and electrical maintenance he was in charge of a unit that was responsible for seeking and identifying potential suspicious signals. On one occasion he did find such a signal which appeared to be a broadcast in German. He recorded the location of the signal, found by radio triangulation, and reported it to the Army. He never heard anything of it again.
He was stationed at Rose Bay when the Japanese midget submarine tried to torpedo a USN ship, but the torpedo passed under the ship and destroyed a Sydney ferry, named, I think, Kuttabul. He also told me that it was the first time he had ever seen a man run into his trousers, holding them in front of himself and putting one leg at a time into each trouser leg as he ran at full speed. As with all soldiers our dad really only told us of the funny things that happened to him during his service.
Eventually Dad was sent to New Guinea where he was in charge of an army RADAR unit. He would spend up to 24 hours a day in the operating box with his h air standing up due to the static electricity present. At the time he had a number of warts on one hand, so he aimed the RADAR antenna at the top of a nearby hill and walked up to it with a dipole antenna. He used the antenna and the RADAR to burn the warts off his hand. He never had them again.
More to the point, the airfield where he was stationed, near Port Moresby, was occupied by USAAF bombers and RAAF fighters but they always had problems with their weather forecasts because as soon as they released a weather balloon the balloon would go straight up and they were unable to aim the RADAR antenna at it. So, my dad went inn to the town and bought some Japanese lanterns, some candles, some string and fixed the problem. He measured how long it took the wicks on the candles to burn down to a certain point and drilled a hole through the candle at that point. He put the string through the hole and tied weight to the string equal to the rising force of the balloons. Then, when the balloons were released, they rose to an altitude just high enough to miss obstacles around the airfield. Outside the airfield the string burned through, the weight was dropped, and the RADAR could be focussed on the balloon all the way up to more than 35,000 feet.
Our dad was promoted to sergeant while still in New Guinea. He would have been made a Lieutenant but missed required exam due to illness. At the end of the war our father left the army on his own terms; the army wanted him to remain in, but he never intended to do so and got out as soon as he could. The means by which he left on his own terms is a very interesting story, but I will not write it down here.
Submitted 11 December 2023 by Evan Hart
Biography contributed by Evan Hart
Noel Hart was highlyl regarded by many people. His education was not formal but mostly achieved by himself due to his interest in all things electrical and mechanical. He learned to fly during the 1950's, in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, but gave it away so that his sons could learn to fly, given that the family had little extra money for such activity.
He told me (Evan, second son) of several events that occured during his army service in New Guinea in WWII. On one occasions a stick of bombs fell but one which dropped next to his accomodation did not explode, so in the morning he dug it up, disarmed it, and turned it into a heater for his hut.
He had a lot of warts on the back of one hand so he pointed the RADAR antenna at the top of a nearby hill and walked to the top with a dipole antenna. There, he used the antenna to burn off the warts and never had them again.
After the war he worked as an electrician, ran the local movie theatre in Pilliga, using mostly scavenged parts to assemble the projectors. With a little help from Evan he built what became the biggest outdoor theatre screen in the southern hemisphere. The speaker he made could be heard in Gwabegar, 19 miles away by road.
Eventually the arrival of TV in the area began to make the movie theatre non-viable and he made a giant Yagi antenna, which was lifted aloft by a hydrogen balloon. We were able to get TV from Tasmania and New Zealand although the pictures were rather grainy.
Ultimately life on the land around Pilliga was acknowledged to be very poor and Noel stated that it should never have been farmed as yields were always very low and most rain in the area came from thunderstorms. Then the house on the property was burned down, almost certainly by a person with a grudge, and the family moved to Sydney where his wife came from. He set up a building company with a partner who was not in good health and who died suddenly. There was trouble sorting out legal matters afterwards and when these were done he took a job in a factory as a cleaner. A week afterwards he was appointed as a precision grinder even though he had never been educated in any trade other than by himself.
The factory owner had served in New Guinea and had brought back a Japanese Diesel engine which he intended to use to power his factory but no-one could get it to run although many had tried. Noel asked the owner if he could try and having been given permission he had the engine running in less than an hour. It might be worth reporting that his first car was one he built himself, using an old refrigerator packing case as the body. This was before the war. The car was completely illegal of course and if he ever encountered other traffic on the road he would drive it off and cover it with a tarpaulin, just in case the other vehicle might be the police. He drove the vehicle at night too, although it had no lights.
Eventually Noel and wife Grace retired to Alstonville, near Ballina, and had a very good life there until his death at the age of 93. Grace died some years later at 92.
We have a few very interesting photos from Noel's life but have to find them before I can scan them. It is hoped that this can be done in the next few days.
Click images to start slideshow.