Before I Sleep (9 page)

This was driven home to me when I was in Gibraltar. Dick and I became friendly with a civilian type whom we used to meet playing tennis on the navy's courts. He said his name was Don Darling. Dick and I got to like him and we met occasionally. We didn't know much about his background. And then one day he asked us if we would like to accompany him on a trip to Algeciras, the town across the bay in neutral Spain. He said he'd shout us lunch at the pub over there. So the next time Dick and I had a spare day we joined up with Mr Darling and proceeded through the border post, Dick and I presenting our Air Force identification and Don Darling his civilian passport. We walked around the shore of the bay towards Algeciras. On the way we stopped very casually at a small cafe and Don suggested we have a cup of coffee. Inside the cafe Don said that he wanted us to play the part of tourists being shown around southern Spain. We drank some excellent coffee and then Don disappeared for a quarter of an hour with the cafe proprietor with whom, he said, he had a small bit of private business to transact. When Don returned, he took us to the main part of Algeciras and we lunched very well on the terrace of a hotel, surrounded by Spaniards and some other fair-haired types whom Don pointed out to us as German officers on leave. They looked at us and we looked at them. And then we returned to Gibraltar.

We had a few more outings with Don. We learned about a “Spanish” trawler that had slipped into Gibraltar harbour and unloaded some cargo. We thought this was a bit odd — ships from neutral countries did not normally do this. We talked about this with Don who told us that the vessel also visited the French Mediterranean coast where its crew performed a few duties “for us”. We didn't pursue the subject.

After the war I discovered that Don Darling worked under the code name Monday. He was the southern organiser of the famous MI9 escape route over the Pyrenees. He organised for escapees from prisoner of war camps or shot-down airmen who had managed to escape from France into Spain to reach Gibraltar. I suspect that the cafe owner may have had a small dinghy with which to row escapees to our side of the harbour. As well as Monday, there were Saturday and Sunday and the MI9 escape route was very successful. But the Germans were nevertheless able to infiltrate the organisation and send through their own agents posing as downed allied airmen. In this way, the Germans learned where the safe houses were and then shot those people who had been helping the escapees.

By chance we met one of the British airmen who had crossed the Pyrenees in winter with his mate from a bomber crew who had been shot down over Holland. They had made their way to southern France and then over the Pyrenees by the smugglers' route. One man had dislocated his ankle on landing and the injury had worsened and become gangrenous. He had received some medication from friendly doctors along the way, but had walked for three weeks on a green and painful foot. When he arrived at Gibraltar he was taken to our mess to await a plane home. He was in considerable pain. When I think back on the sacrifices made by the Dutch and French Resistances in giving help to allied air crew and escaped POWs, it seems to me that we really owe them a great debt. I know that some of their contributions have been acknowledged, but often honours are given for very minor things compared with the dangers involved in helping an airman from another country. True enough, the airmen were on the same side as the Resistance, but the lives of not only the active men and women of the Resistance were at stake: whole families could be shot. Yet throughout the war that escape route kept operating. A few years ago I read that the chief organiser of MI9, who had become a member of parliament, was assassinated by a car bomb while on his way to the House of Commons.

Another incident that confirmed the idea that life is less than fair occurred when Dick and I went for an exploratory trip in a British submarine operating out of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. We only went for a while, but I was completely frightened the whole time, although I hope I didn't show it. Dick wandered around asking technical questions about engines and speed and horsepower. I couldn't muster any enthusiasm at all. But I really was impressed by the courage and the sheer guts of the submarine crews who went to sea time and time again. In this case it was a medium-sized sub under the command of a Lieutenant Spring-Rice. Spring-Rice was a young man of about twenty-three or twenty-four, tall, fair-haired, athletic, charming to talk to. Dick and I got on well with him and we benefitted from our stay on his submarine. He got us safely back to Gibraltar and I have never been so grateful to be on dry land. About a week later, we were flying out of Gib towards Malta and saw Spring-Rice's submarine coming back towards Gib on the surface. It was only a few miles out in a safe lane. He saw our aircraft and signalled to us on the Aldis lamp: “Good hunting, birdmen.” And I thought about how much courage was involved because he himself had survived a number of attacks from aircraft. In fact, Spring-Rice did not return from his next trip: his submarine was sunk somewhere in the Med. I feel a loss, a personal loss, that type of man had given up his life, while back home wharfies were going on strike, demanding higher wages for the task of loading munitions for our soldiers in New Guinea. And I'm afraid that whatever little interest I had in the ALP disappeared when I learnt about that. For some years after my return to civvy street, every time I read of Eddie Ward getting up in Parliament and making one of his speeches, I used to think what a loss it was that Spring-Rice had gone.

Thinking back about Spring-Rice's Aldis lamp message to us brings to mind another three-word message that I haven't forgotten in fifty-eight years. This was a message that was flashed to me by the commodore of a convoy of oil tankers in the Atlantic, making for Malta. The convoy of twenty large tankers, manned by merchant seamen, had set out from the West Indies carrying oil fuel. They would have been given a close escort until they reached “the gap” in the mid-Atlantic. The American destroyers would have turned back before the convoy reached the waiting British warships. There was no air cover possible so far out to sea. It was here that the U-boat packs would have been patrolling. They had sunk ten vessels from this convoy — half the fleet.

I can't imagine a more frightening experience than being a merchant seaman in the mid-Atlantic on a large oil tanker exposed to U-boats waiting to torpedo you. If you are hit, the vessel either catches fire immediately or you can be thrown into the sea where you suffocate on the oil that spreads out and gets into your lungs. It was a dreadful prospect. And the remaining ten vessels would have seen the other ships go down one by one in the middle of the night. They would have seen the flames and heard the screams. But they couldn't have stopped to pick up survivors, as this would have given the U-boats stationary targets. They would have had to steam on, leaving their mates to drown or die of burns.

In this case, we left Gibraltar and were the first aircraft to give the convoy cover after the ordeal. It was early morning when we picked them up and began to cruise around looking for U-boats. The commodore of the convoy sent us a signal: “Thanks for coming.” We stayed with them as long as we could and then left when another aircraft from our squadron arrived and took over. Our squadron was required to give the convoy close cover all the way through the Straits of Gibraltar and on to Malta.

Dick and I picked them up a few days after our first encounter as they were nearing Gibraltar. We flashed the captain a message: “Meet you in Gib.” The tankers arrived in Gibraltar harbour at about midday and by tea time the crews were ready for shore leave. Dick and I went down to the docks and met the captain and his mate. The American ships, unlike the British ones, were completely dry. No alcohol was carried on the American vessels, so we offered the Americans dinner in our mess. It was a bit late when we arrived, but we scrounged a bit of a meal and had a few drinks. When our bar closed at ten o'clock, we loaded up with some more grog and retired to Dick's and my quarters. The four of us drank whisky and sherry until the early hours of the morning, by which time the dockyard gates were closed and locked. So the captain and his mate stayed the night, sleeping on the floor. One or two of us became sick as dawn approached, so our room was a bit of a mess in the morning, but we got up and showered and shaved. Dick and I were due to fly late that afternoon, so we took things fairly quietly, seeing our American friends off at the gates of the camp.

Later that morning, Dick and I were carpeted in front of the Wing Commander — “Uncle Case”, as we referred to him. He was a regular RAF type: domineering, a pain in the neck, a bully. I never felt at ease in his presence. The war was providing Uncle Case with a big career opportunity, to achieve promotion. I thought he was a phony, that he did not have the commitment to action that the other air crews had. Years later, when trying to analyse why I couldn't get on to the same wave length as Joh Bjelke-Petersen, I found real parallels with Uncle Case. I think Joh wanted the state of Queensland to benefit from his administration, but I also think he was even more interested in the Bjelke-Petersen family benefitting from it. I don't doubt that Uncle Case wanted the Allies to win the war, but he wanted the war to effect his own advancement. He tore strips off Dick and I for the party we'd given our American friends. He was outraged that we'd left our room in such a mess that our batman had complained to the head batman who had complained to the adjutant who had complained to him. As a matter of fact, Dick and I didn't get on at all well with our batman. I suppose he thought us tight-fisted, but we refused to tip him as the English officers tipped their batmen. It didn't surprise us that he'd complained. The wing commander subjected Dick and I to his normal diatribe. We received one of these every four or five months for some misdemeanor or other. We took it in good order, but what annoyed me was that Case could so completely fail to understand the relationship, the bond, that had developed in just in a couple of Aldis messages between a convoy badly beaten up by U-boats and the first aircraft to reach them. But Dick and I felt good about our hospitality, and felt hostile towards Case. My own hostility has lasted a long time.

I always felt that the merchant marine crews never, never got the recognition that was due to them for the effort they made during the war.

5
Homecoming

(1944-1953)

I
N early 1944 I had finished my second tour of duty. My squadron had been flying out of Mogadishu in Somalia, looking for U-boats in the Indian Ocean. There were a few around. The war in Europe was entering its final, land-based phase and the larger German submarines were being sent round the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean to aid the Japanese. These were 1200 tonne vessels equipped with small gliders. The U-boat would sail into the wind on the surface, towing an observer in the glider. He could spot a likely target at a far greater distance than was possible with the U-boat's radar, which was almost at sea level.

I was war weary. I had completed my two tours of duty and was still alive, but England now had little use for Australian navigators skilled at coastal surveillance. I wanted to go home. I applied for discharge and was told to return to Australia on a thousand tonne tramp steamer that was due to sail from Aden to Fremantle. The captain welcomed me aboard and gave me his own below-decks cabin. He would use his day cabin next to the bridge. We set sail across the Indian Ocean that I had recently been patrolling from the air. I probably knew more about the U-boat menace than the captain, so I kept an eye on his course. We steamed to the south-east, away from the worst areas. The trip home was uneventful — boring, even. Every evening at sundown I would join the captain in a small gin sling. He had a limited supply, so we only drank one at a time.

I spent a frustrating fortnight in the Fremantle disembarkation centre, waiting with hundreds of others for a place on a troop train to Adelaide. But I managed to ring Mavis. By today's standards, the quality of telephone transmission over the thousand miles of wire strung alongside the East—West railway line wasn't good, but it was the first time we had heard the sound of each other's voices in almost four years. At last the train pulled out of Fremande. It took two or three days to cross the Nullarbor Plain, stopping every now and then for meals. These were served by the side of the track, the food doled on to each man's plate. Eventually I arrived at the Keswick Barracks in Adelaide where I was given two weeks' leave. Outside the barracks I noticed a taxi discharging a couple of soldiers. As they got out, I got in. The driver said he was happy to take me back to the city where the streets were full of high-tipping American soldiers. I said I wanted to go to Plympton, all of three miles away. The driver insisted he was going nowhere but the city.

“All right,” I said. “We'll go to the city watch-house, where I'll report you for failing to fulfil the obligations of your taxi driver's license.”

“Who are you?” the driver said.

“Detective Whitrod.” Without further comment, the taxi driver took me home.

It was a wonderful feeling to be back. I am sure Mavis rightly had expectations that her lifestyle would now revert quickly to its happy prewar state. But, after the euphoria of the first twenty-four hours, I found myself confused, bad-tempered and depressed. After four years of male company, I could not fit into a domestic environment with two young children who did not know me and who did not carry out my orders. My father, quiet and easy going, was the significant male in the household. It was to him that my sons turned when confronted with this loud, irritable stranger. Ian didn't know me at all, and it is unlikely that Andrew retained any memories of the father he'd briefly farewelled when he was a little over a year old. I don't think my relations with my sons ever completely recovered from this early childhood separation. Later, things were quite different with my daughter, who had a father at home from the beginning.

Looking back, I don't think I had any real idea at the time of how my years in the airforce had affected me, or how my presence now affected my family. For four years I had had a batman to carry out routine domestic chores. In the officers' mess, I had eaten as much as I liked of whatever was on the menu and then got up from the table, leaving the clearing and the washing up to others. Suddenly I was expected to take some responsibility for household chores and to consult others on how I should spend my time. In my years away, I had had very little social contact with women; the squadron had been an all-male preserve wherever it operated. Now I was in a household stamped with the presence of my wife and mother.

I must have made my family miserable. During my first week at home, I would go into the city for hours and walk down the main streets just hoping to bump into a familiar RAAF face. I would return late for the family's evening meal, having drunk too much, muttering: “I'm off to bed.” I must have been a great disappointment to Mavis, but her only response was to treat me with even more tender, loving care than before. Nowadays there are all sorts of diagnoses and treatments for post traumatic stress disorder, but then it was regarded as pure moodiness.

We decided that Mavis and I should go away on our own for a week on a second honeymoon to a favourite guesthouse near Mt Lofty in the Adelaide Hills. But after the first day I could no longer stand the quietness and the isolation. I was jittery and full of complaints. I pleaded with Max Dawson, my old friend from the Flinders Street scouting days, to come and join us. Max had just been discharged from the army. He was reluctant to join us, but I needed a man to talk to — someone who had gone through the same sort of experiences I had. Max had been a medical orderly in New Guinea where his unit had sometimes continued with surgical procedures while under attack, operating by the light of kerosene lamps when the generators failed. We three spent the rest of the week just tramping around the hills and talking. I gradually felt more at ease. Without the help of Mavis and Max, I could easily have gone further downhill.

I returned to the CIB and was faced with a job that now incorporated new regulations and procedures. Rationing and the blackout had been introduced while I was away. There were US troops all over town and responsibility for keeping them in order had to be shared with their military police. Although many of my old mates were still in the CIB, there were many new faces — strangers with whom I had to learn to work. I felt old and worn out, and too cynical to once again tackle departmental tasks with enthusiasm. I was given a welcome home night by my workmates. Beer was rationed, but somehow a fridge-full was found. We met in a room above a fish shop in Grote Street which had been some sort of workshop and was reached by a steep flight of stairs from a door in a side lane. The festivities were boisterous and full of horseplay: neck-ties were cut in half with scissors, the crowns of felt hats were bashed in. I'd known some pretty wild nights in the officers' mess during my service, but I found this sort of thing adolescent. I felt that in the years I'd been away I'd grown up far more than my contemporaries who'd stayed in Australia. I returned home that night in a cross mood: I'd made the mistake of wearing my best tie.

But someone in the Detective Office made a brilliant decision when they paired me with a younger officer, Ted Calder. Ted was an excellent mate with whom to work, and I gradually got back into harness. He was somewhat boisterous and a renowned practical joker, but his sense of humour ran to things that were a bit more sophisticated than tie-cutting. Ted's good humour helped to restore my own. He shared my ideals of policing, was enthusiastic, hardworking, and competent. He was well-liked and knew his way around the town — an asset I had lost during my five years' absence. I believed we were an excellent team. I began to act normally. Life at home improved. We helped my parents buy a small cottage, and they left us to ourselves. I took Kerry, our setter, for some long runs on my bicycle. I teamed up with an old workmate, Jack Vogelesang, to build a weekend shack at Encounter Bay. We bought a block of land for £40 and spent another £40 building the shack during our four weeks' annual leave. It was just one big fibro room, but it was a great place for a cheap holiday: the kids could play on the beach and there was good fishing to be had on the rocks.

Mavis and I thought we would like another child, and in November 1945 Ruth was born. With her coming I somehow managed to shake off my remaining mental trauma and became a useful parent, providing some relief to Mavis. At one stage, Ruth got sick and I can recall spending long hours beside her cot humming lullabies to get her to sleep. I began to take on the family tasks that I had found so irksome in the earlier months. Mavis's attitude to me never altered during those troublesome times; she had never failed to smile at me, and give me a warm hug.

I began to regain my old ambitions and so started part-time studies in law at university. I realised that if I was to catch up with the men who hadn't been to war, I'd need to have something extra on my record; a degree would be ideal. The government's rehabilitation scheme for ex-servicemen was quite generous. I could have studied law full time, but the living allowance would not have been as much as my policeman's salary and, now that I was back into the swing of things, I was enjoying being a detective far too much to give up the j ob. As it was, I became the University of Adelaide's first part-time law student. The CIB still worked its old impossible hours and so I found that getting to lectures and the library was difficult. When I was on night patrol, I often managed to duck into the Law Society's office where the library was open until late. In those days it was necessary to look up cases individually. No one had yet collected similar cases into convenient volumes. As usual, my time with the family suffered. I completed two years of part-time study, mainly at Honours level. I ran into no real resentment from my police colleagues for trying to become a university graduate. I think it was looked upon as just another example of Whitrod's eccentricity. Quite a few of my colleagues routinely got time off to play Australian Rules football, so there was a sort of precedent.

I began to agitate in the CIB for less rigorous working conditions. These demands were modest enough: six nights off a fortnight instead of the traditional four, a better pension and the like. There were now more young married men in the CIB who wanted time at home with their families, and who didn't get their fill of pleasure from attending race meetings on duty. I didn't want to risk my career prospects in the CIB by agitating too hard and was careful to take a quiet, reasonable approach; even so, Inspector Sheridan called me into his office and advised me not to become too radical. So I stood for and was elected the CIB representative on the Police Union executive. We started moves for a better pension and my union status gave me some defence. Without being a boss's man, I tried to be diplomatic. We had no success over our demands for shorter hours, but we were successful in having a form of superannuation introduced. I argued that, as many policemen lived in accommodation provided by the department, they had no house of their own when they came to retire. A lump sum payment would make it possible to buy a house. I also produced statistics to show that the average life expectancy on retirement for a policeman was only three and a half years. A lump sum payout would be very much in the interests of his dependents. I helped put our case to the government's chief secretary who, like the Premier Tom Playford, was an ex-serviceman. We got on well together. Overall, my industrial activities didn't seem to affect my standing in the branch. Everybody below the commissioner stood to benefit.

I was selected by the commissioner on the advice of the CIB chief to represent the Police Department in an important radio debate on juvenile delinquency. When we were on air, it seemed to me that the three other panelists were tackling the problem in a very general sort of way. I managed to talk about the experience of growing up poor in the inner city. I talked about going to school and selling newspapers in the city. Many juvenile delinquents, I said, came from the same background as myself. I also managed to quote some statistics that showed that catching offenders when they were young made them less likely to re-offend than if they were only caught after their life of crime was well established. A day later, a letter appeared in the
Advertiser.

Yesterday evening [19.05.47] at the weekly debate over Station 5KA “Adelaide Speaks”, one of the four contributors was Detective Whitrod, the other three being Dr Constance Davey (psychologist), Mrs Amy Wheaton (University Lecturer in Social Sciences) and myself. I consider Detective Whitrod's contribution was outstanding, and was an excellent illustration, of the ability, perspicacity and wisdom of the young police officer of today, as compared with his predecessor of a generation ago. (EG. Hicks, barrister, Adelaide)

The radio appearance was probably one of the things that brought me to the attention of certain senior members of the intelligence community. Another may have been the Chief Watchman case.

One day my mate Ted and I were called in to the Inspector's office, where we found him in the company of a prominent Adelaide barrister, Jack Alderman. Mr Alderman was the owner of a racehorse, Chief Watchman, the favourite for the Adelaide Cup which was to be run in a few days' time. He had been told by his trainer of an approach by an investor who wanted the horse nobbled. The investor would make a killing by backing the second favourite at a larger price. At the time, I was only a detective constable and Ted a plainclothes constable. Clearly this case should have been allocated to more senior members of the force. But it seemed that Mr Alderman was asking for our services because he believed we were not only competent but also trustworthy. The inspector appeared to agree with him. Only later did I realise the significance of that agreement. The barrister, who was frequently involved in criminal trials, was well-informed about the members of Adelaide's small underworld and their activities. Maybe he knew something about why some of the more senior CIB staff managed to be so well-dressed. It was a nice compliment for him to ask for us to do the job. Ted and I planned our moves with care. In those days, drugs were rarely used to slow down horses. In this case, the proposed scam involved giving the animal a large feed shortly before the race. It would have to run on a full stomach. We arranged for the trainer to ring the investor from the Glenelg Police Station. While they discussed the scam, I listened on an extension and took shorthand notes. Sophisticated phone-tapping with recording devices had not yet been developed. A search of the investor's home on the Friday morning when we arrested him netted more evidence. Then followed a long, bitterly fought Supreme Court hearing at which Ted and I were cross-examined by leading counsel at some length. The investor was wealthy and had friends in high places and had engaged the services of a top Queen's Council. I half suspected that the QC dragged out the cross-examination, not because he thought he could get his client off, but because he was being paid a handsome fee on a daily basis. Either way, corroboration between Ted and myself proved to be solid evidence. The fact that the whole telephone conversation had been taken down word for word as it happened must have carried considerable weight; I was immune from any suggestion that my memory might have been at fault. I was slightly worried that the jury might contain an investor who would be unduly sympathetic to the accused, but I knew that any small-time punter on the jury would know that it was the likes of himself who ultimately paid for any successful bit of race-fixing. The jury believed our version. The investor was convicted and imprisoned.