Interviewed  by  George  Dick  and  tape-recorded  at Newcastle  on  15th  November  1990.

When I visited the Recruiting Office in Newcastle, I tried out for aircrew but they didn't think I had reached a high enough educational standard, so I went for groundstaff and joined the Royal Australian Air Force as a trainee technician. I did my rookie's course at the Bradfield Park depot in Sydney, and was then posted to No 2 School of Technical Training to undertake basic training at the Technical School there. The Principal was a fellow I had gone to school with in Croydon Park — Arthur Martin.

About two months later I was posted to No 1 Engineering School at Ascot Vale in Melbourne to do some more advanced training — such as hydraulics and theory of flight, qualifying as a flight rigger. From there I was posted to No 30 Squadron at Richmond on 8th August 1942, together with Lionel Gutteridge and AC1 Hansen, who had been on course with me.

To me, Richmond was quite a huge place, and there were quite a few Beaufighters on the 'drome. I suppose that one of the most peculiar things about my posting was that my training had been related to aircraft such as the Fairey Battle,, the Avro Anson, the Airspeed Oxford and similar older types of aircraft, yet here I was in a squadron equipped with one of the most modern high-speed aircraft in the world, and of which we knew absolutely nothing.

I'll never forget the day when we left the Air Force Station to go north. We were dressed in our khaki uniforms, forage caps, draped about with webbing, wearing sidearms and carrying our rifles. The officers and senior NCOs were wearing their newly-issued pith helmets. I was pretty puffed up, for it was the first time I had marched in a squadron behind an Air Force Band. The WAAFS had turned out and made a line right from the parade ground to the front gate. Some of the townspeople were waiting near the Clarendon Railway Station when we arrived there to entrain for the trip up to Brisbane. It was a real moving situation, and we all felt pretty proud.

We spent a couple of days in Brisbane and were then told that our train special train would leave Ascot Railway Station at 2200 hours. It so happened that I was a bit delayed and then couldn't see a vacant seat. The Adjutant — Curly Wearne — told me to look sharp and find a seat anywhere on the train. I poked my head in one compartment and the when the occupant heard that I couldn't find a seat, he invited me to share his accommodation. I can't remember this officer's name, but this good fellow did me a good turn for he was in a sleeping compartment, and I had a bed for the entire trip to Townsville.

When we got to what I think was Mackay — I can't be sure because all the nameplates of the stations had been removed as an anti-invasion measure — Curly took the fellows for a short route march, but detailed a few of us to stand guard at each carriage and prevent any of the fellow's stuff from being pinched. There was a pub right opposite the station so as soon as Curly was out of sight over the hill, we took it in turns to nip across and knock back a schooner or two.

We spent one or two nights at RAAF Station Garbutt, where we slept on the floor of the gym, and then moved out to a tented camp at Bohle River. On one occasion, the whole Squadron was lined up along the edge of the dirt strip there and we were addressed by Group Captain Garing, who stood up on some temporary platform so that we could all see him.

I went in to Townsville when I could get off, and on one of the weekends four of us went to one of the hotels along the Esplanade, where we found a bunch of Dutch fliers who were drinking spirits. And so did we. I will remember that for a long, long time.

On another occasion a few of us were walking down the main street and saw a rather buxom-looking WAAF coming towards us. One of the fellows with me remarked that we were about to be intercepted by a 'Beaufighter Girl', and as the WAAF passed, she slapped his face. It was obvious that she knew, and took offence at the remark for that phrase was applied to girls whose twin boobs stuck out further than her nose.

I flew from Bohle River to Wards with Len Vial and Sergeant Hanks in A19-37.   The ack-ack boys at Moresby nearly opened up on us when we arrived. Apparently, the recognition procedure for aircraft coming in from the south was to make a circuit of the wreck in the harbour, but Len didn't know this and the gunners had never seen a Beaufighter before, so we were a bit lucky that day.

We visited the fellows manning the guns on Ack Ack Hill, who were a bit unhappy about being referred to as 'Chocolate Soldiers', but in my opinion, they did a magnificent job. They told us about nearly opening fire on the Beaufighters when they made their approach to Moresby, and it appeared that they did the same thing to the Kittyhawks when they arrived there too.

Before we had left Townsville, the other airman in the aircraft (LAC F Brennan)  had gorged himself with ice cream, Cadburys chocolate and other goodies which he mightn't see for some time in New Guinea. Len was making a circuit prior to lining up for the approach, and maybe it was a bit too bumpy for this other fellow because he brought the whole lot up and deposited it in the well just behind the pilot. It was too much for Len — he had to open all the storm windows to get some fresh air on his face in an attempt to stop himself from chucking up during the critical stage of landing the aircraft.

Blackjack led the formation across to Moresby and espied another aircraft coming towards us, not much higher than the waves of the Coral Sea. He wanted to make sure that it wasn't unfriendly so he put his nose down and dropped down to see what it was — followed by the whole formation doing exactly the same thing. There was a frantic flashing of lights from nearly everyone in that aircraft who must have been horrified to see a battle formation coming straight at them. It turned out to be a Catalina which had been damaged during a raid and was intent on making it back to Townsville at low altitude.

When we arrived we occupied a campsite that had been prepared by Warrant Officer Good, down at the northern end of the strip; later on, Servicing Flight was accommodated in that vicinity. We slept in what might have been a first-aid tent or something similar; it was a bout twenty feet long and ten foot wide and made out of brown canvas. We were all on palliasses, side-by-side and head-to-toe. The officers and senior NCOs slept just over the way in smaller tents that had been put up by the WOD and his advance party.

The palliasse allotted to me was right next to the tent-flap, and there was virtually nothing between me and the jungle, and in the blackness of the night we could all see a few moving specks of light which some alarmist in the tent were the eyes of Japanese infiltrators. We had the wind up, for sure. It turned out that the lights were caused by fireflies flitting about in the night.

Somewhere about three o'clock in the morning the whole camp was woken up by yells from one of the navigators and this caused quite a commotion because probably everyone thought we were being attacked. However, it turned out that the navigator claimed that he had been woken up when a thirty-foot snake had crawled across his body.  Although we searched the area, and gave our palliasses a thorough inspection, we never found the thing. However, when one of the messing fellows went to the nearby creek to get some water for breakfast, he did find a snake, but it wasn't thirty feet long and was nothing more than a python.

We didn't stay at that campsite for more than a week or so, when we moved to a new location up in June Valley.

There was a canteen there, but it didn't carry much in the way of stock; writing pads, ink, pencils, soap, toothpaste, razor blades, shaving soap and that kind of stuff. I know that it stocked chocolates of some kind, but there was no refrigeration, by the time you bought one it had turned white for the heat and was all sticky.

The Squadron had two lovely cooks — Lola and Brenda. When we went to the Mess for our meal, we would see one of them with a pale blue scarf around 'her' neck, held in place by a brooch. They were a very effeminate pair, but apart from that, they were good-hearted and generous. On one occasion either Lola or Brenda came across to our tent and when Robbie told his visitor — in a rather jocular manner — that he would give anything for some nice hot scones, the cook went back to his kitchen and re-appeared with a tray of freshly-baked scones.

We had quite a few air raids — though they were mostly only nuisance raids, except for the big one when we lost some of the Beaufighters. The Japanese aircraft had been plotted as coming south so all the aircrew were alerted to take-off and get out to sea so that their kites wouldn't get damaged by bombs. But before they got off, a Dispatch Rider arrived on his bike and said that the alert had been cancelled because the enemy aircraft had diverted to Bulldog, where a road was being built to Salamaua. They did that place over allright, but then they came over the ranges and flew down the coast to Moresby and attacked the strips. Our aircraft were on the ground and we lost Beaufighters we wouldn't afford to lose at that time.

I had been in Servicing Flight originally, but was in 'A' Flight at that time, and our flight tents were just off the strip, and about two thirds of the way down. We were sitting in that tent with nothing to do on 25th January 1943 and when we looked outside we saw that Sergeant Bill Schofields — a Fitter IIE known in the Squadron as Whingeing Willie —  was pointing skywards and although his lips were moving no sound was coming out. When we eventually went outside to see what was upsetting him, it took us not more than a few seconds to dive into our trenches and keep our heads down while the Japs had a go at us. It had rained heavily the night before so that when we jumped in the trench it was half full of water. Ross Little's flight mechanic (who was of a religious turn of mind) wasn't too pleased to get wet so he jumped out, grabbed a can, and started to bail the trench out. I got hold of him and pulled the stupid fellow back just as the bombs burst, and I can tell you that I was crouching so low in that trench that my tin hat was floating on the top of the water.

The result of that raid was that A19-55 was incinerated and three others were badly damaged or holed by shrapnel — A19-26, A19-34, and A19-73. It had been Ross Little's intention to fly A19-55 down south for some repair and maintenance and after he had given it a test flight that morning, he'd put all his flying gear plus some other personal stuff he wanted to take home, aboard that aircraft. When  Ross came down after the raid and saw what had happened to A19-55 he almost cried, thinking all his gear had been lost. I let him carry on for a minute or two, and then asked if he would get something for me out of the cockpit of his own aircraft. He could have kissed me when he saw all of his stuff up there, because for some reason I'd moved it over.

There happened to be only one lone American aircraft up there mixing it with the enemy planes, and of course there were sao many of them that his aircraft got shot out of the sky. The pilot got out of it, I believe, but when they found his Lightning it was so full of holes it looked like a colander.

One of the fellows liked to write little ditties about others in our Squadron and he would come to me and, as I liked to sing, would suggest I put them to music. The Mobile Works Squadron, whose camp was between ours at June Valley and Wards strip, had a bit of a concert party going and they sometimes asked me to sing a few songs. Which I did.

Curly Wearne was a great one for Air Force bull, and after that big raid my mate wrote a little ditty about the Adjutant, which I sang that night:

     I've heard some fine old bulls...
          And I've heard queer tales of woe,
     But I'd never heard of panic
          Till Split-pin joined the show.
     He'd talked of boosted spirits
          And how he'd raise morale,
     But his only theme was panic
          with flagpoles big and tall.
     One day old 'Nip' sent bombers
          to blast us for a row
     But the boys stood fast beside their kites
          prepared to face the foe.
      While miles away at camp they say
           Splitpin dropped his lot
      And said if one man panicked
           he'd shoot the bloody lot.
      From here the story varies,
           When the bombers made their run
      The joke of all was 'Splitty'
           in his fox-hole on his bum.

Someone pinned that up on the unit notice board and the next day there was a call for me to report to the Adjutant immediately. He wanted to know who had written that particular ditty, and wouldn't believe me when I told him that I didn't know the author. Then he opened a manila folder, which I saw contained copies of other ditties, and his purpose of calling me up in front of him was to get a copy of the latest.

One never-to-be-forgotten incident when Arthur Ferrier and Bill Cosgrove got more than a little tipsy one dark night and at some late hour, hid themselves in the bushes and yelled out "Blackjack's a bastard. Blackjack's a bastard."

When an air raid was imminent, the cry would go round to put the lights out, and then the entire Valley would be blacked out. But on one particular night, one person didn't put his out, despite many calls to do so. There was an army bloke visiting somebody in one of the tents on the hill, and when all the yells failed to get the light doused, and fired a .303 shot through the tent. The light was in Blackjack's tent.

The next morning he had the entire Squadron on parade, and he stood in front of us, slapping his hand on his long-barrelled Luger. He called on any yellow-bellied so-and-so's who wanted to go home, to step out in front because you haven't got any guts. And one of the airmen  — Harry Deakin? — stepped out, complained that Blackjack had no right to call anyone in the Squadron yellow, as they wouldn't be there if that were the case. He said that he had a much guts as the CO and would go anywhere that He went.

So Blackjack took him up on that and took him out on a Beaufighter strike, during which he threw the aircraft around to try and make it a bit tough for his passenger. When they got out of the aircraft at Wards, Blackjack asked the fellow how he'd liked the trip. To which the airmen coolly responded by asking if he was going out tomorrow. I have an idea that later on that airmen graduated from aircrew training as a pilot.

I was occasionally joined with a few fellows who could play instruments, and we did a few turns in the Airmens' Mess during the 1942 Christmas Dinner. We were asked to give a repeat performances in the Sergeants' Mess later that afternoon, and in the Aircrew Mess that night. I was playing a ukulele/guitar at the time and Blackjack insisted that I sing 'that song about Wearne". So I sang it once. But he ordered me to sing it again, and again, and again. and all the time the Adjutant was sitting po-faced only a few feet in front of me.

As the night went on, and the grog started to take effect, the mess members called on Blackjack to make a speech. So he stood on a sear, but they told him to get up. And when he stood on the table, they told him to get up. And when he stood on a seat perched on the table, they told him to get up. And when he complained that he couldn't go up further and told them to put him down they just let the seat fall to the ground.

That was such a hot night that Col Campbell thought it would be a good idea to sleep outside in the raw, and fell asleep in his slit trench. But the mossies got at him and he got a dose of malaria out of that episode.

Only a few days after arriving at Wards, I was driving a petrol tanker down Wards Strip because they wanted the Beaufighters re-fuelled for an early morning take-off. There was another vehicle ahead of me, and at one stage I caught a glimpse of an American negro making for the side of the 'drome at a pretty fast clip. And when I saw others doing the same thing, it dawned on me that I was experiencing my first air raid. So I put my foot down hard, and as I passed the American truck, I looked over to warn the other driver about the imminence of a raid, only to see that it had no driver in the cab at all.

Some of the big-wigs wanted to have a look-see at things ion the other side of the Owen Stanley ranges, so two Beaufighters were laid on for them. I went with Mike Burrows and Alfie Burgoyne; the VIPs included General Herring, Sir Owen Dixon, General Moreshead, and General Berryman. Keith Nicholson and Ken Delbridge were in the other kite. When we landed at Buna, I took out my little Bullet camera and asked General Herring if I could take a photo, and he readily agreed.  I invited Burrows and Burgoyne to get in the shot too, and as Mike passed me he remarked that I was a cheeky bastard.

When Mike Burrows was preparing to land at Milne Bay, he found that he couldn't get his undercart down, so he went round a couple of times and kept trying, without success. Alfie Burgoyne put me on the intercom and I reminded Mike to pump them down by hand, and warned him not to switch the motor on or he'd lose all the oil. Mike also told us not to say anything about the incident to the VIP passengers. He eventually got the legs down, but wasn't sure that they were locked. Anyhow we landed OK, and when General Herring got out he remarked to me that it had been a nice trip, but it was a bit of a poor show that the legs had got stuck when the pilot tried to land.

I spent a short time in Unit Sick Quarters at June Valley with dengue fever, being attended by the nursing orderlies and 'Doc' Marsh.

'Doc 'used to collect all sorts of things — butterflies, frogs, insects, and at one time landed up with a small crocodile, which he confined in a wooden case from a 20mm cannon, with a bit of wire netting over the top. But someone must have let it out during one of the night air raids and put it in one of the trenches for safety's sake. That trench was happened to be next to the tent occupied by Ronnie James — known to us as 'Cassanova'. While he was having a shave in the open air the next morning he happened to look down into the trench and the hand holding the razor jerked so much when he saw that crocodile that he nearly spoiled his good looks for all time.

I filled in some of my time doing what nearly everyone else was doing — making foreigners. I made a pair of pilot's wings out of perspex, which were polished up by using the toothpaste given to us by the Red Cross. I also made a model Lightning out of the casings from a 20 mm cannon.

I saw a few Beaufighters prang during my time with 30 Squadron Blackjack came in on one occasion and made a belly landing at Wards Strip. And I was one of the men who went to help out with A19-38 which Blackjack pranged had pranged on Pyramid Reef. By the time that we got there, his navigator, Bill Cameron, had used the fire hatchet to hack away the instrument panel and to salvage a lot of other gear from the plane. I think that the CO was up on a test flight and lost a motor and he lost the other while he was trying to get back to Wards.

I'm aware that there is a belief that Bob Harding hit the mast of the Moresby Wreck when his plane went in at the end of May 1943. But there are others who believe that A19-73 lost lift when it got caught in the slipstream of the immediately preceding aircraft during that straffing demonstration for the benefit of the new crews. That demonstration did not use the Macduhui as the target, it used the old wreck of a German ship at the extremity of the Harbour and which had been there since World War I. The Macduhui was close in, and nearly opposite Hanabauda village.

Bain and Beynon were two of the greatest lifters you ever heard of; they'd take anything — even if it was bolted down. They went to the pictures one night and came home with two American jeeps. They spent the next day scrubbing off the identifying marks, the engineers ground the numbers from the motors, and somebody painted a white square on the vehicles. On another occasion they came home from an outing with two motorbikes.

The fellows had to pinch things if they wanted to improve their pretty miserable existence in the very primitive conditions of wartime Moresby. Someone had dug a big pit on the other side of the road from us — it was about 6 feet square — covered it with boards and stuffed it full of American gear. They had clothes, equipment and everything else, which they were prepared to let us have — for a price. I'm sure that the fellows responsible weren't  Bain and Beynon.

Like everyone else who worked down at the strip, I went out to the Army stores place and got tins of fruit and so on. It was no trouble. You just walked through the place and picked up what you wanted. Yet we never seemed to get served anything better than tinned bully beef or tinned Meat & Vegetables in our own Mess. Some of the goundstaff went across to Buna when the Beaufighters were deployed over there and we stayed with the Americans for two nights. I've never seen food like that in all my life. They'd get a piece of toast, put on a piece of cheese about a quarter of an inch thick, spread jam on top of that, and then put a great dollop of cream on the top.

We'd been at Moresby about five or six months and I intended to spend my afternoon off in the town, but before I got away, I was instructed to report to Split Pin. He wanted to know where I was going, and would you believe it, he sat down a leave pass — to go from Wards Strip to Port Moresby, in the middle of the war theatre!

While we were in Moresby the Engineering Officer — Norm Fraser — arranged for us to attend some courses designed to prepare us for the examination and trade test for remuster to a Fitter IIA. But the examiner failed every single one of us because we couldn't answer one of his questions. He wanted to know how to weld nickel-silver. We gave a variety of answers but we were all said to be wrong because the examiner said it couldn't be done. However, we later learned that he was dead wrong. I didn't do my IIA course until I got back down south and went to Ascot Vale in 1944.

Bill Roberts — a Fitter IIA — was in my tent at Moresby — he worked at Recketts. Another fellow called Robinson — an electrician was in my tent. Roger Passfield, who came from Swansea, was the driver of the petrol tanker in the Squadron, and was later awarded an MID.

The Japanese mounted a big raid on Moresby on 12th May 1943. just before we left Wards the Americans built a road joining the two airstrips, and it was so wide that you could take aircraft between Wards and Jacksons.

I flew down to Milne Bay in a Beaufighter crewed by Bill Cosgrove and Bernie Le Griffon. Later on, I went with that crew when they took  the new CO — Wing Commander Glasscock — across to have  a look at Goodenough. Cosgrove was not the most careful pilot in the world — he'd forget to lock his tail-wheel and the thing would shear off, or he'd fly down low over the sea with the intent of whipping up water with his propeller tips.  He took off in coarse pitch three times to my knowledge. I was watching one time when he took off from Milne Bay and we say his aircraft sinking lower and lower, until his navigator reminded him to alter the pitch. He often used to bog his Beaufighter in the soft earth near the strip. I took a photo of his grave at Goodenough and gave it to Jack Dwyer of the Richmond Football Club in Melbourne.

Cosgrove landed at Goodenough after being out on a bash, and complained about hearing peculiar noises in the tail-plane. I went up with him, but although I could hear the noises, I couldn't identify the cause. He wanted me to get it repaired so that he could take it out the next morning, for he was to be leader on that mission. When I took the tail-plane off I found that the hinge was in about six pieces, but there was no way I could fix it by the following morning.

So he took Beaufighter A19-74, which belonged to Keith Nicholson and Ken Delbridge and took off on an armed Recce from Cape Orwell about 0330 on 13th August 1943. He pranged in the sea about a mile or so from the western end of Vivigani Strip.

I liked Goodenough; it was a great place. My tent was on the side of the hill that sloped down towards Vivigani Strip, and at night I would amuse myself by playing my ukulele. We had made friends with the natives who had their plantations and gardens further up the hill, when we went up there they would give us some of their fruit. One pitch-black night when I was in the raw, stretched out on my bed and playing, I looked outside and found a row of young boys and girls lined up and listening to the music. From then on, we never had to climb up that mountainside because they brought fruit down to us at night.

We were in the back of a truck going  back to our camp from Vivigani strip and as we were passing over that little creek near the bottom of the hill, a couple of the boys jumped out and, as a bit of a joke, pinched the grass skirts of some young women who were having a swim there. But some of their boy-friends happened on the scene and as they were none too pleased about the incident there could have been a big stink that day.

When we got to Goodenough Owen Fenwick and I decided to form a concert party because there was nothing there at all; the officer in charge of Welfare in that area — Chips Rafferty — intended to get something going but never got around to it.  So we got the chaps from the Mobile Works Squadron to build us a stage down at the bottom of the hill, and, with the addition of one or two fellows from other units, put on our own shows there about once every week.

Flying Officer Sims, who had been with the ABC as an arranger, did the arranging for us too.  We had some good times with our concert party.

Eventually, Tommy Davidson of the ABC Dance Band in Melbourne (and the brother of Jimmy Davidson of ABC Sydney Dance Band fame) took over the running of concert parties and wanted me to join him.  But I had been in New Guinea long enough and wasn't prepared to have my tour there extended, so I declined.  Nor did I want to come back for a second tour.  Chips Rafferty took me to meet Air Commodore Hewitt, who wanted to know if I was interested in Welfare work.  I think that the 1945 posting to do a Welfare Officer's  course might have been the result of his recommendation to Air Board, plus those of a couple of other officers who must have thought I had some ability in that field.

While I was at Williamtown I found that I had been posted down to Melbourne to do a Welfare Officer's course, but after talking with Wing Commander Townsend I got that cancelled since I didn't want to make a career in the Air Force.

I was taken across to Kiriwina by Ted Marron and 'Bunny' Gollan in their Beaufighter.  It was the worst place I ever served at, My eyes were always squinting, for the Island was formed from yellow coral, and that was the colour of the strip.  It was very glary.  The Americans sent a special kite back to USA to bring back sunglasses for all their men.

Along the side of the strip was a series of signboards, each with one or two words painted on it. The complete message was " Here lies     the body of     Flight Lieutenant  Flynn     who forgot to take      his  atebrin".

The camp at Kiriwina was inland from the strip.  We got a few nuisance raids when they dropped two-pounders.


PERSONAL  PARTICULARS

NAME            :  FRANCIS  ALFRED  SIMPSON
BORN ON         :  18 November 1911
BORN AT         :  Croydon Park, NSW
FATHER          :  Alfred Simpson
MOTHER (Maiden) :  Alice Short
EDUCATED AT     :  Croydon Park
                   Ashfield Technical School
MARRIED TO      :  Gwendoline Lloyd
MARRIED ON      :  20 March 1937
MARRIED AT      :  Croydon Park
CHILDREN        :  Stephen
ENLISTED AT     :  Newcastle
ENLISTED AS     :  Trainee Technician
ENLISTED ON     :  ..  December 1941  ?
DISCHARGED ON   :  ..  December 1946
RANK ON DISCHARGE  Leading Aircraftman
OCCUPATION THEN :  Traveller
ADDRESS - 1990  :  2 Caldwell Avenue, Dudley, NSW  2290
                (049) 49 7381


POSTINGS  
                                  
Feb 1942    To No 2 Personnel Depot, Bradfield Park
Mar 1942    To Basic Technician's Course, Canberra
May 1942    To Flight Rigger's Course, Ascot Vale
Jul 1942    To No 30 Squadron, Richmond
    1944    To Melbourne (for refresher course)
    1944    To No 5 Operational Training Unit, Tocumwal
    1945    To No 5 Operational Training Unit, Williamtown