No 1

No I App. Arm. Fitt, 2nd App Intake.

Back Row: Fl.Lt Sparks (ArmO), Jordan Rigby, G Blain, John Gunn, John Payne, Robert E Moon ( Instructor).
Front. Mervin Skinner, Eric Morgan, Frank Crosling, William ( Blue) Steele, Wally Thomas, G (Toby) Blakers.
(Frank Crosling became a pilot on Neptunes. He later became CO of the school for Radio Apprentices in Melbourne)

As a Fitter/Armament of the 1st Armourers Course I sent you an update last year of our course's photograph but was reluctant to write as I thought nobody would be interested to read about someone who'd enlisted more than half a century ago.

I will start off by telling you all that I can remember at the moment.

We arrived (Victorians, Tasmanians, South Australians and West Australians) at Forest Hill Ground Training School (GTS) near Wagga Wagga on 5 July 1948 and were allocated to wartime vintage huts built of weather boards and asbestos sheets. Each one contained three rows of beds with a locker at the foot of each one and a bedside carpet. When the Pakistani apprentices arrived, early the following year, a bedside carpet was issued to these Moslems for use as a prayer mat. The huts were lined and there was linoleum on the floor. Just as well as the weather gets very cold in winter and we had no heating. The hut captain, a Sgt.App. or Cpl.App., had a small room at one end where he could install a electric radiator and invite his mates to a warm-up.

The mess complex consisted of three galvanized iron huts side by side, as you can see in the photograph with the Mack truck and trailer out front. One was the mess hall, one was the cookhouse and the other was a study room where we could also have a hot drink before lights out. It was a sweat box under the hot summer sun and a cold room in the winter. The food must have been agreeable as I can remember the cook calling out "any more for any more" when the meal queue ended and some raced off for a "backup". Each entry way of the mess consisted of two successive fly-proof doors as the blow-flies were numerous in this sheep breeding country. If you found maggots in your meat and told the officer-of-the-day he would say "keep quiet or the'll all want some". The reply when you found a fly in your cup of tea was, "don't worry, he wont drink much".

At Forest Hill we had general education instructions and draughting and workshop courses in turning, fitting, welding and wire rope splicing, etc.

Finished our general training, we went on to training for our musterings. The armament bods were: Flt.Lt. Sparks, Lac Moon and a Flt.Sgt. whose name I can't recall but he wore a half wing on his chest with an "O" for observer and his serial number was 45 (maybe Roger Keary).

Firing practice was done on the 25 yd range with the weapons in use at the time, Smith & Wesson 0.38" revolver, Enfield 0.303" rifle, Bren 0.303 light machine gun and Thompson 0.45" sub machine gun. We also did stripping and cleaning of these. I don't remember if we fired the Browning 0.303" and 0.5" machine guns as there wasn't a mounting for them but we did fire the Hispano Suiza 20 mm heavy machine gun into a sand filled concrete drainage pipe. We operated the Lincoln Bomber's front and rear turrets mounted on a trolley.

During our armament training we did a specialist course at a Santa Barbara near Albury, maybe Wodonga, and besides learning storage practices we also disposed of some flare bombs. Maybe we blew up too many at a time with the result of some broken windows at a nearby farmhouse. Another course was at East Sale Flying Training School to do some bomb aiming with 25 lb practice bombs from a Lincoln Bomber over the Ninety Mile Beach.

I remember Forest Hill quite clearly from some assorted pictures that I found on the Alsfitt, Sew & Fabric Worker Trades web site which I hoped to send you by e-mail but the site no longer exists so I will send copies by post with some photographs of my appy days. One picture shows the main road looking towards the main gate and the other shows the post office.

Kind regards

William Steele

Wagga Wagga 1950

This photo shows John Payne sitting on the spare tyre of the jeep. It was taken when in an encampment the 1st and 2nd Intakes set up near Wagga Wagga in 1950, to be taught how to live in the bush by erecting tents, setting up a field cookhouse, digging a latrine, etc.
Photo Blue Steele