Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

In December of 1939 I started work in the school holidays at a Perth store opposite the Town Hall called Bon Marché. I had completed two years at James Street High School (Perth Girls) and was expecting to go back for my final year. I had studied shorthand and book keeping but the government hadn’t supplied us with typewriters to complete our course, but when I was working in the “Country Order Department” I was offered a position in the Perfumery Department which really appealed to me so I jumped at the chance.

The girls in the perfumery wore pretty pink uniforms and although I was a junior, they accepted me and I was very happy there and we became life-long friends. It was 1939 and I was 15 years of age and earning fifteen shillings and one penny. Five shillings went to y mother for my board, five shillings went on my weekly train ticket, and I had a whole five shillings to myself!!! I loved being a working girl and was still going to Sunday School at Carlisle Methodist and was in the choir, and Girl Guides on a Monday night.

The war was looming and we would see troops in uniform in Perth streets and young boys from the shop joined up. It also meant that shipments of French and English cosmetics were not being imported anymore. Bon Marché had the sole agency for Elizabeth Arden cosmetics and perfume and they were not being imported anymore and our department was very depleted and uninteresting and after three years when I reached the necessary age of 18 I decided to enlist in the A.W.A.S. (Australian Women’s Army Service).

I didn’t even ask my parents’ permission, I just went over to Frances Street and joined up. I left Bon Marché which has since been demolished and been replaced by a picture theatre.

On February 11th 1943 I became an A.W.A.S. and did a three weeks ‘rookie course’ at the WACA ground, sleeping under the original grandstand on a metal bed frame and a straw filled pillows. We trained marching etc each day at the nearby Gloucester Park trotting ground.

After my ‘rookie course’ I had the option of being stationed at Rottnest on the guns, or going to Albany as a searchlight operator. It wasn’t a hard decision as I knew I wouldn’t always be able to get home on leave in the winter weather from Rottnest but I could be sure of my leave from Albany.

March 1943 saw us fitted out with uniforms, pay books and we were inoculated on the train to Albany. When the train pulled into Albany station, one person I recognised was a sailor who had often come into Bon Marché when on leave to see one of the girls as he used to belong to a group who met up at the Embassy Ballroom at the bottom of William Street, since demolished. When we left the train at Albany we were marched up to Stirling Terrace where the army had commandeered a lovely old two storied house called ‘The Mount’, also now demolished. We girls all of eighteen years of age and our first time away from home and terribly homesick and we cried ourselves to sleep every night.

Each day seven of us would be piled into the back of a canvas covered utility and driven up to the Forts at Albany where we were instructed on the operation of the Range Finder and drill to activate the coastal search lights on the water front on the entrance to Albany harbour. The seven of us (sappers) met the boys who manned the actual searchlights. We had lectures and instructions during the day an went on duty at night. When the old 1st world war married men’s quarters were made habitable at the Forts we seven were moved up there and slept in the huts but had our meals in a building near the parade ground.

Two sailors were on duty daily on the ocean side of the parade ground and were responsible for receiving signals from ships coming in and out of the port. It was out of bounds to us, but I often saw Doug at meal times. Some of the boys on duty were responsible for driving us down to the command post behind a huge rock facing the entrance where they left us, two girls on duty at one time, while they drove ton to man the searchlight. We would operate the searchlight and practice what was called ‘a sweep’ from two islands just outside the entrance of the harbour, from Michalmas Island to Breakcasa Island, then shut down the lights and go to bed on our pallicos on the concrete floor, when we would be woken up by the boys by telephone if needed as they stayed on duty.

By mid-1943 it was obvious the Japanese weren’t likely to invade via Albany as previously suspected so most of the Army boys were posted up to Darwin. In October 1943 the A.W.A.S. were dispatched back to Perth and I was sent to the search lights at Leighton while billeted at Karrakatta, going by train each day to Leighton. Eventually huts were erected at Leighton behind the old rope works and we moved in 1944. The rope being produced was stretched in a long tin building each night and creaking and groaning was quite weird. The rope works has long gone and housing has taken over our old camp but the command post where we spent many nights on duty peering out to sea looking for ships or submarines is still there and the tunnels where the shells were stored and steps up to the guns are still visible – but no mention of the search lights now.

I was able to log the coming and going of Doug’s ship, the ML826 as he was now stationed in Fremantle and we had an occasional date. It was 1944 and the war was drawing to a close and I was tired of army life and looking forward to getting out.

When it was obvious the war was coming to an end, the Forts at Leighton were closed down and I was sent to Finance Office in Shenton Park and was living at home in Carlisle and catching the train each day. I was filling in records of payments to Personal and typing with one finger.