Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Whilst at Alice Springs the city of Darwin was bombed by the enemy. Fortunately we were not in the city on that day. After many trips back and forth to Darwin transporting supplies and cleaning up in the aftermath we were then instructed to travel through the centre of Australia heading towards the Atherton Tablelands. Once arriving one of our duties was to transport troops to the ports from where they were dispatched overseas for duty. We also had to do maintenance on the trucks, repair our boots and many other tasks so we very much became "Jack of all trades and master of none"!!
We were then given a time on leave which we all thoroughly enjoyed being able to go home and see our families again. On return we then travelled back via Mt Isa to our camp outside of Adelaide River in the Northern Territory. One of our duties was to go to the Aboriginal settlement and pick up the men to work in the public facilities such as hospitals. Leave was then granted again and it was whilst on this second leave period in 1945 the war was declared over and we were released from military service. Even though we never experienced fighting on the front line of war the role we took was still important and I am proud to say I was involved in offering my service to fight for our beautiful country of Australia. Written by John Burton 20/6/2015 (aged 93 years)

My first recall is visiting the Defence Force office in Adelaide where I presented myself for service. When I first enlisted in 1941 we were camped at the Wayville Showgrounds. Here they did our medicals and provided us with uniforms. On the first day we marched down to a building where we were provided with a large hessian bag which we then filled with straw to use as a mattress. I remember marching around the parklands surrounding the city of Adelaide each day.

After a few months of local training we were then transported to Woodside Army Barracks where we were taught mechanical skills to enable us to drive and repair the trucks we would be required to use.

From there we were sent to Puckapunyal Army Camp where we engaged in military drill and became the transport section of the 2nd Armoured Division to be prepared for service where ever required. At that stage Japan declared war on Australia and those in charge decided that the armoured division would not be of any major advantage in the islands.

We as a driving regiment were disbanded from the 2nd Armoured Division and became the 2nd 164th Transport Platoon and shipped off to Alice Springs. From here we got our first look at the vehicles we were about to become very familiar with and started to drive in convoy on the unmade road to the north of Australia with supplies for the troops. It usually took 3 days for this trip and after unloading we would return to Alice Springs where we restocked with more supplies and repeated the exercise.