Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

June Hitch was born at Wilmington 10 June 1925, second daughter of Joseph John and Gertrude Hilda (Stutley) Hitch. John and Gertrude farmed section 24w, 49e and 49w in the Hundred of Pinda.

June listed her occupation as Home Duties when she enlisted with the WAAAF on the 31st of July 1944. She was 19 years old. She travelled by train to Victor Harbour where she spent the next four weeks completing her “Rookies” at Number 4 Initial Training School,  Mount Breckan, as part of “Flight R94”.

On completion of this training, she was posted to Lake Boga RAAF Base, in Victoria. She was the only one of the thirty women from her course to be posted there.

After the Japanese attacked Darwin and Broome in 1942, the establishment of a safe haven for flying boats was required inland, outside the sphere of Japanese airplanes. Lake Boga was picked as it allowed almost unlimited choice of landing/take off directions and was free of obstructions. It was also close to nearby infrastructure. Number 1 Flying boat repair and service depot maintained Australian, Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force and United States flying boats, including PBY Catalina, Dornier Do 24, OS2U Kingfisher, Short Sunderland, Supermarine Walrus and Martin Mariner.

Facilities constructed at the base included workshops and hangars on the foreshore, a stores area, living quarters, a first-aid and dental post, a radio transmitting station and a VHF transmitting station, and was staffed by some two thousand personnel. Her first duties were as an orderly, delivering mail to Officers, and other general duties. June recalls the ‘camp’ was down by the lake but the staff huts, mess hall and other buildings were located about two miles away. She shared a hut with ten other girls and one orderly. Each morning they had to fold their bedding, shine their shoes and pass parade.

Staff were picked up each day by ‘cattle trucks’ and returned to their quarters each night. She recalls the food being ‘OK’ but entertainment was minimal. 24 March 1944 June was remustered to Driver, Motor Transport. Duties included driving patients to the hospital, located half way between Swan Hill and Lake Boga, as well as ferrying officers from Swan Hill to the base or down to Melbourne. Leave was minimal although they had host families at Kerang who would take them home on weekends or days off. She never returned to Willowie during her eighteen month posting at the base.

It was at Lake Boga Flying Boat Base that she met her future husband, Ronald Arthur Hunter, of Flemington, NSW. He was based there as a fitter, working on Catalina’s.

June married Ron on the 1 September 1945 at Woodville Methodist Church, and was formally discharged from the RAAF 27 September 1945. Ron had not been discharged from the RAAF at that point., so they lived in Swan Hill for a period of time while Ron continued working at Lake Boga. After his discharge they moved to New South Wales where Ron was employed as a mechanic. It was here that they had their first child, a boy.

They eventually returned to South Australia to live, where they had their second child, a girl. After Ron retired in 1982 they moved to Mannum, as they had spent their holidays on the river with their children and friends over the years.

June still lives at Mannum and proudly marches in the Anzac day parade in Adelaide every year.

Excerpt taken from book "Diggers From the Dust" (2018) Di Barrie & Andrew Barrie