Veteran women plan bike ride through southern France to honour war hero Nancy Wake

Australian military women's stories in the spotlight at Sydney's Anzac Memorial for HERstory exhibition

Sir Eoin O Fada wrote on Jan 7^th, 2024 at 10:30pm:


She was Guest Speaker at a Senior Sailor’s Mess Dinner at HMAS CERBERUS I attended many years (decades!) ago.  A riveting speaker who absolutely controlled the room during her presentation.  No fancy graphics, no power point, just her.     At the end of the evening, when all the formalities were over, she sat with a few of us in the Mess until the early hours - no one else spoke as she continued her stories.  what a wonderful and fascinating part of Australian Wartime Histroy she was!   The white Mouse - a true legend!

Brian Ross wrote on Feb 19^th, 2024 at 11:06am:

I had a cousin who was there, he’d got sick and was downgraded to a wharf labourer, his mates ended up in Changi or on the Burma Railway; said he was pissed off at the time but thanked the Lord later on.

Worked with a bloke who’d been an ammo handler on an anti-aircraft gun on an island in the approach to Darwin, couldn’t read or write but had exceptional long range vision. Told me that he’d seen a Betty bomber heading their way and told the Boss, but the Officer said he was imagining things, so said have a look through your glasses, up with the binos and the mate got instantly promoted to spotter.
We were working on the local shire council and he said to me “Don’t look, but the Engineer and his mate are watching us through the theodolite”
He told me where so I had a covert look and could see a faint red spot on the far hill.
“That’s the Engineer, he’s got a red cardigan on”.
A couple of hours later the Engineer [the boss] pulled up to see how we were going and he was wearing a red cardigan.

Another Darwin story.
I met a bloke years ago who’d served in Darwin, he’d been a wireless mechanic/electrician in the RAAF, and often flew on operations in bombers because to avoid aborting, he’d keep working on a problem and fly, most times he fixed it and the plane took part in the raid, sometimes they had to abort but most times he saw action. After the war he was denied any medals and recognition of his service on the grounds that he was not authorised to fly on missions.
Many Officers had attested to his devotion to duty but to no avail and it finally took Ministerial intervention to get him recognition.

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