by Ray Whitrod
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)
IN 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.
Details of the hearing were circulated widely by the media and followed closely by the race-going public. Ted and I received high compliments from the crown prosecutor and from our inspector. But some months later there was an unexpected development. A South Australian judge, Sir Geoffrey Reed, had been appointed the first Director General of Security. At the same time, Adelaide lawyer Bernard Tuck, who was known to have worked in army intelligence during the war, had quietly sold up his practice and left town, perhaps to become one of Reed’s deputies. These gentlemen also seem to have been impressed by our performance.
One evening, out of the blue, I received a telephone call.
“I don’t suppose you know who I am. My name is Bernard Tuck.”
“I know who you are,” I said.
“How come?”
“Your father was the minister of the West End Mission when I used to go there.”
“Oh, that’s right. Have you any idea why I’m ringing y
ou?”
“Yes.”
“What am I ringing you about?”
“You want some good investigators.”
“How did you find that out?”
“I worked it out.”
“Well, you’re the only one who’s done so.”
I had no hesitation in joining the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). The organisation’s work seemed to me to be of national importance. I received a small rise in salary and access to a motor car (I had been taught to drive by my Arab bearer on the airstrip in Mogadishu, though I never undertook a test). Mavis noted my enthusiasm and unselfishly agreed to the change even though the new job meant moving to Sydney where we had no friends or relatives. I had to leave quickly, so Mavis was left with the task of selling the house, packing the furniture and bringing the family to Sydney.
A senior officer of ASIO called recently to refresh my memory of the legal restrictions on publishing material concerning my service with that organisation, so I am forced to confine myself in this narrative to personal information.
I purchased an unsuitable house on a hill at Rockdale; it was infested with a plague of fleas. We called in the fumigators a few times, but we never completely got rid of them. The hours I had to work in Sydney were awesome: ten to twelve hours a day for six and often seven days each week, and sometimes overnight. For me it was exciting work — I was in charge of a team of field investigators. But Mavis had to locate a school for the boys and a kindergarten for Ruth. She had to find shops and walk there almost daily, supervise the homework of the boys who were now on a different school curriculum and handle my outlandish hours. On one occasion when she had been awake all night with Ruth who had the measles, I tried to get time off to give her a hand but met with no cooperation from the only other person authorised to handle my classified material. Much of my time was spent on surveillance duties. Because couples were less conspicuous than two men, our teams were mixed. I spent many long boring hours in close physical proximity to my attractive ex-WRANS teammate, keeping watch at night on various houses. Luckily Moya and I were good friends, equally dedicated to our job, and there was never any suggestion of a closer relationship. Mavis never exhibited any resentment about our pairing. Jealousy is unknown in her repertoire of emotions.