One of my truly lasting memories of World
War II is of the raft of Aussie Diggers that stomped through our house in the
'burbs, as we were sort of an unofficial Drop-In Centre for a parade of young
blokes in uniform, all with big boots and singing voices of assorted quality.
Some were relatives, some were from back in our old home town out in the bush
or both, and all of them had mates, and everyone seemed to arrive with endless
cigarettes and a bottle of beer.
It was the memory and the spirit of these
young men that gave me "The Gunner" in "The House in
Gondwanaland", young men called George and Noicey and Jack and Col and
'Brownie' and 'Lofty' and Ray. And Jimmy. Jimmy Dean.
When he was no more than a boy Jimmy Dean
(his actual name was Hollister James Dean, so probably no wonder he called
himself Jim) came to live and work out in the western wheat-and-sheep town
where my parents lived and where my elder brother and I were born, and in time
became one of the district's top footy and cricket players. Jim worked for the
town butcher, and made deliveries around town by bike, and my mum told my elder
brother Mick how Jimmy used to pick him up and put him in the basket on the
handlebars with the packages of meat, and they'd do the rounds of the town
together.
Along with so many of those young farmland
men, when the shooting in Europe and the Middle East clearly wasn't going to
end by any Christmas soon after all, in June 1940 Jim (by then at 31 not a kid
any more), joined the Army and was assigned to the 2nd/43rd Infantry Battalion.
Couple of months training, a big send-off 'do' for him and the others by the
good folk of what had become his home town, onto the ship, and by Jan 1941 he
found himself in the thick of it in the Middle East.
My Mum was an avid letter-writer and
parcel-sender, seemed to think that somehow warm socks and boiled fruit cake
and words from home would help win the war, and when she died recently (aged
102) I inherited quite a collection of letters she kept from all of her mates
at the front. They are absolutely brilliant. And Jimmy Dean wrote more than any
of them, starting soon after he arrived at a place he could only describe
"...as hot as Hell... and the flies are the worst I've ever struck... and
treat any hand waving with silent contempt...", and while he wasn't
allowed to say exactly where he was, he tells her all about his visit to The
Pyramids and The Sphinx!
Going by his Unit's diaries, Jim was well
amongst the desert campaign for two years, but other than the time he had to
reluctantly let Mum know how her sister's husband died (fairly much right
alongside of him) you'd be hard pressed to see any of it in his letters,
sticking to the 'fun' bits, most of it laced with dry Aussie humour and not
even close to being politically correct. But at all times the uncomplicated
young buck from the bush comes through in the words - "...wandered off to
Cairo... to Groppies Restaurant, one of the show places of the city and home of
bright lights and soft music... and young Jim trying to do a line with one of
the most beautiful girls he has ever clapped his eyes on. A lovely blonde
dressed in pink and willing to talk but that's all!"
Another time he tells her about his set-to
with an officer. It was one "...bright moonlight night in the
desert..." and Jim's section was assigned to protect a group of sappers
who had to clear a path through a minefield, and the officer in charge of them
thought he saw enemy troops on the skyline, and unbeknown to Jim's infantry
section, headed for home, leaving Jim and his patrol stranded. And seeing they
were on their own, in the dark, far from camp, and in a minefield, "...I
got a funny feeling in my tummy then..." is a masterpiece of
understatement. When he got his men back he hunted down the officer and words
were said. Which temporarily cost Jim his corporal stripe.
Jim also doesn't mention being awarded the
Military Medal at El Alamein in July 1942. He and his section were covering the
forward left flank on an attack on Ruin Ridge, and for more than a mile came
under constant fire that either killed or wounded everyone but him, so Jim and
his Bren-gun carried on alone and managed to keep the whole left flank secure,
then joined in on an attack on three artillery positions where all three guns
were knocked out and 16 prisoners taken. Jim'd had a busy day! But never wrote
about it.
My brother told me recently that when Mum
told him (Mick would've been 9 at the time) that Jim "...had won a medal
and would be home on leave soon... (I) was beside myself with anticipation to
see him walk in with his big gong pinned to his chest. When he arrived without
it - he hadn't been presented with it at that stage - I was so
disappointed."
As it turned out Jim never did get to see,
or wear, his medal. Like all of those Battalions, the 43rd was pulled out of the desert in 1943 and
reassigned to the New Guinea campaign, and after breezing through our place
(without his medal on his chest!) on leave, Jim headed for the jungles of
Queensland for re-training, and in August 1943 they embarked for New Guinea and
that's when his letters to Mum end.
Jim's battalion became part of the Milne
Bay defence, and in the early hours of 30th October 1943 they landed at Scarlet
Beach, just north of Finschhafen, to stop the Japanese counter-attack at that
time. The fighting was intense and thick with mortar fire, and just two days in
to the battle SX 5282 Cpl Hollister James Dean MM was reported "missing in
action believed killed".
Jim is buried in the Lae Commonwealth War
Cemetery, and his Military Medal was eventually presented posthumously, to
Jim's father, in 1946.
Like all of those young men who passed
through our home between 1940 and 1944, Jimmy Dean was of a time, and of a
style, the likes of which we will probably never see again.