Potted History! by Apple Gidley
September 3rd, 1939 - Prime Minister Robert Menzies’ voice over the radio announces that Australia had joined the war.
…Annie remembered her father almost biting off the end of his pipe when the government had followed Britain’s 1939 policy toward Nazi Germany and declared war, after Hitler had invaded Poland in September. She could still recall fragments of Prime Minister Menzies’ speech. The first and last bits anyway. Any speech starting, ‘Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty’ was never going to be good when it ended, ‘Australia is also at war.’
February 15th, 1942 - Singapore, the citadel Churchill considered impregnable, falls to Japan.
…The Empire Star loomed ahead. In peacetime, a refrigerated cargo ship with only a handful of cabins, but now hundreds were waiting to board. Whispers heard along the queue had already told Annie, Verna and Florence that the captain did not want women and children aboard. Particularly Australian women, believing them to be troublesome.
“Superstitious sod,” Annie muttered. “The anger of the sea gods is nothing compared to the bloody Japs. Or an Aussie nurse!”
August 10th, 1942 - With the second battle of the Kokoda Trail over, the powers-that-be decided servicewomen would be permitted from October to serve in New Guinea.
…Annie, Verna and Florence itched to get back to the war. With the situation less volatile on the Papuan side of New Guinea, and servicewomen now being permitted to serve in the islands north of Australia from October 1942, rumours swirled around the camp as to when a move would happen.
The stepping stone for their unit—now renamed the 111th CCS—was Queensland.
“I thought Kingaroy was meant to be humid, subtropical. This is bloody freezing,” Annie complained, her hands like icicles as she lit a cigarette.
September 7th, 1943 - at 17 Mile Camp outside Port Moresby in New Guinea, a US Air Force B-24 Liberator ploughed into truckloads of Australian troops waiting to be ferried across the mountains in a bid to retake Lae on the northern coast.
…The boom woke Annie. It didn’t sound like the usual crump of a bomb or gunfire from the hillside, or even the growl of planes taking off and landing. It seemed splintered, a series of blasts followed by an acrid smell. A glow at the far end of the camp indicated dawn, and she checked her watch. Just after four. It wouldn’t be sunrise for another couple of hours. Groping for her uniform, Annie nudged Verna in the cot next to her. “Wake up, ducks, I think something’s happened. Come on, we might be needed. Don’t forget your gas mask.”
December 21st, 1943 - Gladys Moncrieff, known as Australia’s Queen of Song, or Our Glad, entertains the troops at 17 Mile Camp.
…Turning her hand into his, Annie, smiled. “A while will do nicely, thank you, Major.”
Cheers and catcalls erupted as the doors opened and without any words, Gladys Moncrieff started singing, as if, Annie thought later, she knew time was limited.
“Do you like opera?”
“Not the heavy stuff,” replied Annie, “but this is wonderful.”
August 6th, 1945 - An atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, then three days later another over Nagasaki.
…The radio in the nurses’ Common Room at Concorde, switched on morning and evening for the news, reported that Japanese installations continued to be destroyed as the Americans continued their island hop ever closer to Japan, whose cities were being firebombed… It took another five days, as images of the horror appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world, for Japan to surrender and for the Pacific war to end.
August 15th, 1945 - Japan surrenders and the Pacific War is officially over.
…Annie swayed between relief that the war was over, and outrage at the barbarity of the bombs. Flo, as always, proved a measured sounding board. “Terrible things happened, on all fronts, ducks,” Flo said, as they walked back up the hill on their day off.
“How much more terrible can it get than those two bombs?”
“That’s blacking and whiting things, Annie. You can’t do that. Anytime, but especially in war.”
June 24th, 1948 - The Berlin Blockade began when the Soviet Union attempted to wrest power from the Western Allies. Stalin turned off the power, and cut land and sea access, thereby encircling the Western sectors of Berlin.
…Planes, mainly C-47 Dakotas, had roared overhead before the blockade, supplying the western sectors of Berlin with over 13,000 tons of essentials. Most of them battered remnants of the war, so Edmund Armstrong had told Annie…
…“What’s going to happen, Ed?” He and Annie smoked a cigarette and watched the children digging up the flowers. “How can those ropey old Gooney birds supply Berlin now?”
“Don’t knock ’em.”
“I’m not,” Annie insisted. “But I’ve seen them flying over. They’re held together with tape and prayers.”
May 12th, 1949 - The Berlin Blockade ends.
Dear Verna, James and Ruthie,
It’s over! Berlin survived! The bloody Russkies have their tails between their legs. But I’m sure they’ve something else up their sleeves—if that isn’t mixing metaphors, or something! Trisha and I stayed up, smoking in the dark, just to wait for the lights to come on at 0001 so we could turn them off. How’s that for nuts?
May 3rd, 1951 - The Festival of Britain begins as a way to boost morale after the deprivations of the war, even though food rationing was still in place.
…Stepping off the boat an hour later, Annie said, “Let’s find the Guinness Festival Clock. I read that it strikes on the quarter hour with all sorts of moving parts, and a toucan pops out of the doors.”
“A South American bird in a Swiss cuckoo clock advertising an Irish drink!” David’s laugh turned heads. “Perhaps I should have a Guinness to go with it.”
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