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Interview with Megan Rutledge nee McCulloch, WAAAF Wireless Telegraphist [sound recording] / interviewer Bridget McKern - NJSN_AC-010 Relating war time experiences of 1943-1945

By: Contributor(s): Series: Oral history interviewDescription: Playing time 45 minutes CD and transcript 35 cm [l] x 22 cm [h] x 3 cm [w] Copies personal photographs, copies published material 1 manilla folder A4 manilla folderSubject(s): Online resources: Production credits:
  • Interview conducted and recorded by Bridget McKern, JSNWL volunteer on 21.3.12
Summary: SUMMARY - SCOPE AND CONTENT Bridget McKern interviewed Megan Rutledge on 21 March 2012. A CD and transcript of the interview is contained in the material, as well as copies of Megan's war time photographs and copies of other published background material.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode
DVD DVD Jessie Street National Women's Library Archives Compartment 2/Bay 7/Shelf 3/Position 4 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available for reference in the library

Location: 2/7/3/3
CONTENTS

1.CD oral history of WAAAF experiences 1943-1946
2.Transcript of interview
3.Copies of Megan's war time photographs
4.Copies of publications giving background of women's war time experiences

WARTIME MEMORIES OF A WOMEN’S AUXILIARY AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE
[WAAAF] WIRELESS TELEGRAPH OPERATOR, 1943-1946

Transcript of interview with Megan Rutledge (nee McCulloch) by Bridget McKern on 21 March 2012

Bridget: Welcome Megan to our ‘recording studio’ at Jessie Street National Women’s Library Archives. I will be asking you about your experiences in the WAAAF as a Wireless Telegraph Operator (WTO) in Townsville during the War years of 1943-46.

Megan: I applied to be in the WAAAF and enlisted in September 1943 when I was twenty years old. I lived in Sydney but had to go to Melbourne for the ‘rookie’ training which was learning about military process and discipline: how to march, how to fold up your blankets on your bed and the behaviour required of a trainee. Officers were mostly women and were to be addressed as ‘Madam’. We were issued with uniforms – a complete kit of jackets, skirts and overalls. The location for trainees entering the service was the agricultural showgrounds at Ascot Vale in Melbourne which had been livestock sheds in peacetime. The military services used whatever civil establishments were available like showgrounds, football grounds, etc. I slept in No 2 Horse pavilion! These former horse stables were divided into ‘bays’ - four galvanised iron stretcher beds in each bay and the showers and latrines in separate sheds.

Bridget: How many girls went through that training with you?

Megan: Oh, quite a lot because there were many different ‘musterings’ [trainee groups] according to their trade or course. These included wireless telegraphists, cooks, clerks, drivers, etc. At that time in early 1943 they were just starting to take girls into mechanical training groups such as engine and air frame fitters as well. Our particular group was Wireless Telegraphy [WT] used very little line capacity and was widely used by the post office and military services to communicate. The demand for WT operators was high and led to the introduction of Telex. Trainees needed a minimum of three months to become proficient in sending and receiving morse code communications to a standard of twenty words per minute minimum which took about three months to learn.

I always remember the first lesson we had with our teacher, Sergeant Holloway. He was writing on the board and then he started teaching us the phonetic symbols for the morse code sounds: eg d-dah = A; dah-d-d-dit = B, etc and we had to repeat these sounds aloud after him all the way through the alphabet as well as every number from one to zero. There seemed to be no logical relationship between the letters and the WT sounds. It was like learning another language. We were trained to recognise and learn every letter until we could receive and record each instantly at a rate of twenty words a minute minimum. This took about three months for the best trainees. Many failed to graduate because it was a very specialised and demanding activity. When we passed out as graduates and posted to our units some of the trainees were still struggling to master it.

We didn’t know how many did not make it because once we were to Operating Units we had no further contact with the trainees. Those of us who passed went on our way rejoicing at the prospect of serving at what we had been trained for.

My group of graduates was posted to Southern Area Command Headquarters in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, No 414. The signals office there was staffed by about fifteen WT operators and some Telex machines. We were engaged in sending and receiving morse coded messages from all over Australia and South West Pacific.

After about three months I was posted to RAAF base at Townsville known as No 23 Operational Base Unit [OBU]. On route I was given leave in Sydney and lodged at Bradfield Park RAAF Transit Camp. This enabled me to see my family after six months in Melbourne before going to the Northern operational area at Garbutt air base.

During the war, from 1942 to 1945, rail transport was dominated by troop train movement. Troop trains had priority and were specially constructed to transport thousands of troops, male and female, in high density carriages. Some of these had banks of galvanised iron and wire stretchers instead of seats, so the troops could lie down over long two or three day journeys. The rail journey from Sydney to Townsville, with a break on route took about four days. Rail gauge changed in Brisbane so north bound troops were staged there before the final journey north. A train then took us to Rockhampton, a full day’s journey. In those days trains famously travelled up the main street and small children ran alongside to collect the coins thrown by the troops.

Next day we should have proceeded north up the coast through Mackay and across the Burdekin River bridge to Townsville. However, during the wet season, the Burdekin River sometimes flooded right over the bridge and all rail and road traffic was stopped. When that happened, all rail and road traffic had to go inland to Cloncurry, a full day’s journey, then from Cloncurry north to Charters Towers and then east to Townsville, another two days’ journey.

Country Women’s Association people did their best to look after the WAAAF and Australian Women’s Army Service [AWAS] women on the troop trains on their way through. It required a lot of local support to cope with these troop movements.

After days on the crowded trains, arrival in Townsville was a relief. We WAAAF’s were taken by truck to the RAAF Base about four miles from the city station. The Duty Officer took us to the WAAAF Officer in Charge and we were delivered to our quarters in the big above-ground ex-peacetime barracks. The base covered a vast area surrounding a large multi-strip airport.

Next day we were shown the layout of the base and where we would work at the combined Operations Room/Signals Office. This building was the core of the base and was protected by blast walls. All instructions for Air Operations and Signals in and out of the base were conducted from here. We were handed over to our Officer in Charge of Signals, First Officer Burston. The Officer in Charge and sergeants then showed us what the procedures were: what gear we had to operate, what watches [shifts] we would work, etc.

At Townsville we worked normal Wireless Telegraphist shifts which were 7:00am-3:00pm, 3:00pm-11:00pm, 11:00pm-7:00am, seven days a week. We had one and a half days off-duty each week which were free to use as we saw fit. We had zero recreation facilities on the base except for a recreation hall which had a cinema projector. We could leave the base and go into town by truck, bus or walk when off-duty. Offshore at Townsville was Magnetic Island where off-duty troops and civilians went swimming, etc. Much of the civilian population had been evacuated south. We would spend off-duty time at Magnetic Island, Blue Water and Black River. Soldiers and airmen would take a jeep full of girls. The Americans would put on chicken fries. I suppose they bought the chickens locally and the butter from their own mess. They would fill this four-gallon kerosene tin with butter and chickens and deep-fry them. Wonderful food – a rare treat and a luxury for us. It was very well patronised.

I served in Townsville at 23 OBU for two years. Our task was to operate a number of different communication channels to both New Guinea northern Pacific areas and south of Brisbane, Melbourne, etc. Some channels were regular administration and routine, while others were ‘operations’ which were active war time military operations. Some channels were with aircraft movements, direction finding, etc.

Bridget: Can I just get the background...was it before the bombing of Darwin?

Megan: It was after the bombing of Darwin which was in February 1942. Japan bombed Pearl Harbour and declared war in December 1941. It took them only three months to get right through South East Asia to Darwin and that was the start of the war on the Australian mainland. We realised it was a very serious threat to Australia. No government, UK, USA or Australia expected Japan to defeat western military might and capture Singapore and all South East Asia in three months. It was a shock. The Japanese were undefeated until beaten for the first time a Milne Bay, East New Guinea in September 1942 and for the second time at Guadalcanal [Solomon Islands] some months later.

When I reached Townsville in 1943, the war had moved back into Western New Guinea and the northern Pacific Islands. Germany was defeated in late 1945 but the Pacific War continued. I was there until I was discharged in February 1946.

Townsville, Garbutt Airfield, was a major centre for US Air Force modification and repair of bomber aircraft, B25, B26, B24, etc. After being modified they were flown off to their squadrons scattered around the Pacific from New Guinea to Indonesia and the Philippines. When the release of a batch of aircraft took place, it always started at 4.00am and went on for an hour or two. Aircraft took off about every 30 seconds and roared over our barracks seemingly a few feet away, while the building shook with the noise. A photo of the base shows how we were very close to the runways which were used by all Australian and US aircraft every day.

When the Pacific war ended, the government declared a public holiday, Victory Pacific [VP] Day. All operational services had to continue of course but in a very casual relaxed manner. Someone mixed me a Cherry Brandy and Advocaat which was like a great big ice cream soda! There were about 5,000 men and about 200-300 women so you can imagine what it was like. There were as many Americans as Australians.

Bridget: When you were at work, what was it like?

Megan: We operators were in the Signals Office with about four or five watches operating normally. Each operator wore head phones to receive morse code messages, three or four operators usually operated at one time. We would send and receive the messages and write them down sitting next to each other on a bench each with keys and ear phones. The messages had to be recorded with date and time – various significances – Important = P; Urgent = OP. Each message was graded as you did it, and if it was important you called out the Sergeant to take it to the next stage.

A lot of the messages we got there were from aircraft asking for their bearings for direction finding. A lot of them were from New Guinea across the Coral Sea so the navigator would ask the Sigs Office for a bearing as they were over the sea and couldn’t see where they were. We would ask them to give us a continuous beam to track them on. The operator controlling the dish, tunes in and gives the degrees. Mainly the work in Townsville was aircraft but occasionally we would get a ship. A system of Q signals was employed: these three letter Q signals represented a whole sentence, or question and answer messages in code for the navy, eg ‘Give me your message and I will dispose of it’. QQV or QQC all scrambled letters. The codes were all scrambled with up to five letters in each section.

Apart from aircraft frequencies we were on landline contact sending messages from North East Chief to Chief in Milne Bay or Darwin, etc all passed through the Sigs Office like a telephone exchange. Everything came through this system. It could have been for stores or organisational details. Very occasionally we did get a message in ‘PL’ plain language. Mostly they were in code.

Bridget: Were there any critical incidents?

Megan: We did have Air Radio communications, a watch which was to do with aircraft movement when you are talking to the plane. I do remember there was an American plane having a bit of trouble finding Townsville air strip and after some to and fro messages he was saying: ‘I’m not putting up with this any longer. I’m coming in on the first bloody strip I can see!’ The Americans were notorious for being poor navigators and they would arrive anywhere between Cape York and Brisbane [2,000 miles] and they would say: ‘Is this Australia?’

Bridget: What other things do you remember that were memorable?

Megan: When I was training in Melbourne, it was really a thrill because it was my first experience of being away from Sydney and home. We’d go out together in two’s and three’s and get on the tram for free and there were two or three institutions in Melbourne where service personnel could go and one particular building in Elizabeth Street called, the Craig Williamson Building, where we’d visit and get two crumpets and honey and a cup of coffee for twopence and it was a great place to go. Mind you, twopence, related to our pay of five shillings a day, was a fair proportion of our pay...we were often down to the last twopence by pay day. Going down to Frankston beach was awful after Sydney beaches! Some things were exciting though. Not having to be in by nine o’clock...however, we didn’t get up to anything reprehensible really. There was a bit of an idea in the early stages that the girls who went into the WAAAF and AWAS may have been a bit risky...girls of ‘easy virtue’. This was soon dispelled.

Bridget: How did you look after yourselves?

Megan: There was never any problem really. Americans would mostly approach you in Melbourne but they wanted to take you for a cup of ‘carr-fee’ and they would take us into Gibby’s where you could sit for hours and they would supply us with coffee at little cost. It was wonderful.

There was some incident at St Kilda Road...some overseas sailors off merchant ships who would go past and make a grab for you above the waist. We dodged that and very quickly got back home. I was always scared of the dark and we always went out together.

In Townsville, there was absolutely no trouble at all. There was never any fear among the WAAAF’s of any unwanted attention at the base although I did have one experience one night. We lived in barracks which were eight feet above the ground. The two units where the WAAAF personnel lived were next to the RAAF male personnel with no dividing fences. Returning from duty one night, I walked up the steps and saw this airman lying there. I thought he was drunk, so I said to him: ‘What are you doing here?’ He just sort of grunted, so I called out to men’s barracks: ‘Is there anyone awake over there because there is a man over here?’ With that about ten airmen descended on this fellow and carted him off. The walls of the huts were louvered and open because of the heat and we girls all wore shorts...so I heard them saying: ‘No they’re not Meg’s legs’!!

Another experience I remember was down in Melbourne in St Kilda Road, where the officers lived in a big old double story mansion and we girls slept out in the back garden in unlined tin huts. They were absolutely freezing in winter. If you left your washer out overnight it would be frozen in the morning. The toilets and showers were out in the back garden also. I went out to go to the toilet one night and there was a man peeping over the door where a girl was having a shower. At first I thought it was her boyfriend. Anyway I yelled at him: ‘What are you doing here?’ and he grunted and went. So I called out to her: ‘ACW, are you aware that there was a man looking at you over the door?’ No she wasn’t aware!

For our eating arrangements in Townsville, we had to go over to the dining room and queue up – we lowly people were in the airmen’s mess. After every meal the officer on duty would come in and say: ‘Any complaints?’ [Army regulations.] Mostly there weren’t any except sometimes the meat was maggoty but the food was basically plain and plentiful. One of my granddaughters in the Army Reserve says that nothing much has changed!

Bridget: Were you homesick at all?

Megan: I was a bit homesick as I was one of eight children and there was always someone coming and going at home. But it was fun to be away from my father who was a bit of a regimentarian. He would have us all lined up like the army. He was a Warrant Officer Sergeant Major in both wars, and I had brothers in the army and a sister away. But mainly it was fun and a great adventure to be away from home.

Bridget: Did you have any ongoing relationships with the Americans after the war?

Megan: I used to write to one American and one Englishman briefly but I’m not a good letter writer and Neville wouldn’t have like it! [A very small number of English RAF came out in 1944 to reconnoitre the Pacific war against Japan.]

I remember on Victory in Europe [VE] Day the RAF people all came over to the Sigs Office – they had been away for five years. The Sigs Office was the key place for all air crews to gather and get their codes for flying each day. The codes changed at 12:00 midnight and needed to be upgraded each day afresh. Without codes aircraft were incommunicado. This was a major reason why the Sigs Office was such an important meeting place for all aircrews. Many aircrew people became engaged or married to service women through service at operational bases. I became engaged to Neville at Townsville in 1945 whereupon he was posted to RAAF Essenden.

Bridget: At the end of the war...what happened...were you out of a job?

Megan: We wondered what would happen next and nobody told us. Every couple of days a few more girls would be discharged back to their home base. I thought I would go to the Post Office because they were still using morse code then. We had no ongoing advice about re-employment opportunities after the war service. The men did, but not us. I hadn’t matriculated so I couldn’t go to uni and anyway, my father didn’t believe in girls being educated. Only 3% of the population went to university in 1945. It improved to 8% by the 1950’s so I trained privately at my own expense for office work and qualified as a stenographer.

I did eventually go to uni in 1970 as a mature-aged student. I did Anthropology, Sociology and English Literature, double major. My daughter gave me a pre-birthday party recently and she was telling how she and I went to uni together and she had said to me: ‘Don’t come to my university!’ She was at Melbourne Uni so I went to Monash.

Epilogue:

In 2011, 65 years after serving at Townsville RAAF No 23 OBU, we visited to RAAF base there. My husband and I, who had both served there, were shown over the base. Many of the buildings were no longer there and replaced. But some still exist including some of the above ground pre-1940 barracks I had occupied which had stood the test of time. RAAF Townsville is still a big base. It was quite emotional to see it again and brought back so many memories for us both.

Access open for research; written permission required for public use during the lifetime of the interviewee. Access open for research; written permission required for public use during the lifetime of the interviewee.

Interview conducted and recorded by Bridget McKern, JSNWL volunteer on 21.3.12

SUMMARY - SCOPE AND CONTENT
Bridget McKern interviewed Megan Rutledge on 21 March 2012. A CD and transcript of the interview is contained in the material, as well as copies of Megan's war time photographs and copies of other published background material.

TERMS GOVERNING USE - Conditions affecting reproduction

Permission and acknowledgement is required to copy material for research purposes.

ARCHIVAL HISTORY - Source of acquisition

Oral interview recorded by JSNWL volunteer, Bridget McKern.

INFORMATION RELATING TO COPYRIGHT STATUS

Copyright is owned by JSNWL

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