14th January 1948
Apparently, yesterday afternoon a group of our fellows went to Albury and were greeted with the word, Fascists. Obviously from some "Red Ragger” Communist.
Then they went to a dance and returned at 3 am, drunk and loud-mouthing everyone — until it came to fisticuffs in the bus. The driver stopped the bus and called the police. With that calm was restored and everyone returned home happy. I wasn't there and only recorded what I was told by one of the participants.
Today three groups of workers left the camp for their assigned places. They have scattered us all over Australia. Why? We have a fair idea why that was done.
It was a cold day and in the evening was a film shown in the Great Hall.
15 January 1948
Today 128 people left the camp for work. My friend Peter and 15 others, who had been found to have various health problems and sent to Heidelberg Hospital for treatment, were all assigned to their workplaces and left the Camp.
It was my turn for duty in the mess hall. The weather returned to its warmer self.
Apparently, one of our fellows was photographed having a punch-up in Albury and his picture was plastered over the local paper. But they didn't know that he was a trained boxer.
In the evening we were shown a film about Canberra and Perth.
16 January 1948
Twelve more people left the camp today. There weren’t many of us left in the hut and we spent an uneventful day trying to work out a system to keep in touch with one another.
17 January 1948
It was Saturday. In the morning I read my book. Then I went to collect my five shillings pocket money. With it I bought two airmail letters and had a haircut.
We were informed that today there would not be any dances as was usual on a Saturday. The reason given was that one of the girls was supposed to have been raped last Saturday.
This was never confirmed.
The other story making the Camp rounds was that one of the newspapers was offering 100 pounds to the first local girl to marry a foreigner. How true this was, we never found out.
18 January 1948
A non-eventful day.
19th January 1948
More of our fellows left the camp this morning for their work assignments. The Camp is slowly being emptied.
At 8.30 am all males were asked to assemble in the Big Hall. We were told to go and clean the rooms where our classes had been held. We did that, (then) most went for a swim as it was beginning to get very hot.
In the afternoon, I was called to the Office to fill in and sign some papers.
After the evening meal, most of us went for a swim again and return to the barracks late at night to sleep. Unfortunately, that was denied to us at first, as the mosquitoes were very active. I appeared to be the main target and for some time could not sleep.
20 January 1948
This morning I was called to work and once again sent to the kitchen to wash the big steel pans. The kitchen staff had improved since my last experience of work there. This time they gave me a steel putty knife and a ball of steel wool.
I was fairly certain that those pans had never been properly cleaned right from the beginning. I suggested to the cooks that they sandblast the pans. Naturally, they probably did not know what I meant.
I told them that I was to going to see the Commandant.
I did that and explained the situation with the cooks. He finally listened to me about the problem. I promised to go and do any work as long as it wasn’t in the kitchen.
Therefore, after lunch I was assigned to transferring blankets from one store to another.
This took all the afternoon until our evening meal. But it made me happy and no doubt the Commandant too. We never saw eye to eye.
Some 50 years later after my arrival in this country, a friend of ours who was heavily involved in archival research told me that she found my immigration file and another ASIO file on me. This aroused my curiosity.
I got on the Internet and found my immigration file but the other file was missing. I contacted the Archives and asked to see my two files. The answer came back that there was only one file. Do they even lie in high places?*
Since one of my best friends was leaving for a work assignment in Tasmania in the morning, we went to the canteen and each bought a portion of ice-cream. We drank some lemonade as a farewell gesture to the end of our friendship. My assignment was still in the lap of the gods.
21 January 1948
This morning I bade my friend goodbye as he and several others were being sent to Tasmania for forestry work at Maydena. The day turned out to be one of the very hottest.
After breakfast, I went swimming in the Lake. Some of our boys had found some 44-gallon steel drums and had built a raft. They christened it Kanimbla after the dirty, filthy, rusty, old bucket that took us from Fremantle to Melbourne. We used that to float about in the Lake.
We were happily paddling this raft this morning some hundred yards from the shore, when a sudden strong wind kept driving us further out onto the Lake.
Four of us kept paddling this unresponsive raft towards the shore, but the wind was just too strong and kept driving us further onto the Lake. Finally, we decided to abandon our Kanimbla by tying her to a tree poking out of the water and all swam back to the shore.
On our return, we were going to have our lunch when I accidentally ran into our Commandant, Major Kershaw. My diary doesn’t mention the subject of our conversation and after almost 65 years my memory has failed me.
After lunch we returned to the Lake for a swim as the heat stifled us and the wind was as fierce as a fire. I got sunburned that day and was in agony for a number of days afterwards.
23 January 1948
This morning I was called to the clothing store and given two pairs of pyjamas, a hat and a pair of braces. As I was still suffering from the sunburn, I didn’t do anything but read my book. Only after tea I ventured for a swim.
On my return to the hut, we found one of our friends had returned for a visit.
He was one of the fellows who were sent early to work, in the Kiewa valley. He was happy to dig trenches at the project and earning good money.
He took me and a few others to the canteen to sample the non-alcoholic drinks. He bought us oranges to celebrate our "reunion". It was midnight before we stopped quizzing him about his work, living conditions and pay.
24th January 1948
Found my friend P had returned from Heidelberg Hospital. He was one of those people that were found at the Bonegilla x-rays to have damaged lungs.
The authorities wondered how he got here without being detected in Germany. Well, it was pretty simple. We knew that he had damaged lungs and would not pass the test. In actual fact, he had been shot in the back from an aircraft and the bullet had scarred his lungs. He arrived here with somebody else’s lungs.
We worried that all those 12-20 people were going to be deported back to the refugee camps in Germany. Instead, they were assigned to jobs like everyone else. Our praise went to Mr Calwell and Mr Chifley. P praised the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital for terrific kindness, variety of foods and the staff’s expertise.
25 January 1948
Today it was my turn to work in the various jobs at the camp but I was still suffering from my sunburn. The chap from our Transport who was in charge of the work group today was a kind fellow and sent me back to the hut to rest.
He himself ended up being assigned to work in Victoria, in the Kiewa Valley. He married a girl from Albury-Wodonga area. They had two sons who became the local soccer stars.
26 January 1948
Today I spent the morning organising my wardrobe and packing it up, not that I had much to pack.
At lunchtime, our Commandant came to the mess hall and singled out our table as being dirty. He and his offsider wrote down everyone’s names in a little notebook. Our table did not appear as dirty as some of the others. Nevertheless, nothing happened. We expected to be called to his office for a pep talk about hygiene.**
To be continued.
Footnote
* The National Archives of Australia (NAA) online Record Search facility shows that the public now has asked to access 2 files on Endrius, plus 2 other items which are only one page, front and back. One of the smaller items is his 'Bonegilla card', which I have included in previous blog entries. The confusion over the one or two files likely arose because his selection papers are held in the NAA's Canberra repository while his citizenship application (which included security vetting by ASIO) is held in the Sydney repository. Presumably, his enquiry was thought to apply to any Canberra holdings only.
** Note the lack of any mention of Australia Day celebrations, compared with the modern focus on this national day.
