Voices from the Air

by Tony Hill

  Over the next couple of months Cecil made many trips through Lebanon and Syria, mostly with the second technician, Leo Gallwey. Jumbo struggled on the road from Beirut which rose up from sea level in a rapid ascent, thousands of feet into the Lebanon Mountains, but it plodded on, and Cecil recorded interviews and gathered many more messages from troops and officers for ‘Voices from Overseas’. By early September he had recorded 3000 voices and was feeling fed up, but still had many more to record back in Palestine and elsewhere in the coming months. He was aiming to record soldiers from all three Australian Divisions – the 6th, 7th and 9th. It’s unclear how many actually got to air but by the end of September, 500 had been broadcast, arousing wide public interest.102 The Red Cross also copied many of the messages to provide to the families of the soldiers. In some brief surviving film footage shot by Damien Parer, Cecil can be seen recording some messages from Syria, including this one:

  Hello Sydney, this is Jack Robertson sending a cheerio call from Syria to mother and family at Bondi Junction and also daughter Shirley . . . all OK, having a great time, wish to be remembered to all friends. Aussie girls and Aussie beer are still our favourites. Cheerio, hope to be home soon, good luck and keep your chin up. Known through the Middle East as Honest John – rather amusing to the boys at Bondi Junction – and I’ve only got one red mark in me pay book!103

  In August, Cecil recorded the voices of soldiers all the way up to the Turkish border where he parked the truck right on the frontier to record some Diggers: ‘. . . it was very interesting, I placed the microphone in Turkey, sat on the barrier and the men standing in Syria spoke their messages to their homes in Australia. From where do we say the messages come? Turkey or Syria? They were recorded in Syria but they spoke into Turkey.’104

  Henry Lawson’s Theory – The Siege of Tobruk

  In April 1941, when Rommel was advancing through Cyrenaica, Allied forces were pushed back east and the Australian 9th Division and part of the 7th Division were withdrawn to Tobruk. In Wilmot’s book on Tobruk, one of the Diggers he quoted on the withdrawal across the desert to the seaside fortress was Frank Legg. Legg was an ABC broadcaster and writer who enlisted with the AIF and, following his return from the Middle East, became an ABC war correspondent covering the Pacific War. In Libya, Sergeant FH Legg was serving with the 2/48th Battalion of the 9th Division. ‘We came to Tobruk in pretty poor shape. For eight days and nights we’d been out in the desert on the move (chiefly in the wrong direction) and always on the verge of action but always denied the opportunity of “having a go”.’105

  The siege of the Australian troops at Tobruk lasted from April until August. Wilmot arrived by ship in Tobruk harbour in the second week of August, just as a night-time air raid began. In one of his first reports, he described a harbour by then well-used to air attacks.

  . . . above us were enemy bombers and bursting ackack shells. Three sticks of bombs fell while we were unloading – two on shore – one in the water near a ship. We ducked our heads for a few seconds as the near ones whistled down, but no one stopped work for a moment – sailors and troops went on unloading cargo quickly and quietly.106

  The garrison had famously endured much throughout the long months of 1941, as Wilmot reported for the BBC. ‘They’ve got no time for heroics and little chance of comfort and relaxation. They’re doing a hard, boring job with a patient cheerfulness. But it isn’t comfortable conditions and easy living that makes them patient and cheerful. It’s because they’ve got guts and are prepared to take life with a philosophic “well what the hell anyway.”’107 These first observations about the besieged town were aimed in part to counter widely varying reports of conditions at Tobruk: either ‘Dust, Dive Bombers, Derelict ships and Death’ or the ‘gay life’ of a garrison with concerts and football matches. His later reports would paint a detailed, more accurate picture.

  Wilmot and Bill MacFarlane set up camp in Wadi Auda, a ravine cutting into the edge of the coastal escarpment at Tobruk. It was the only wadi with trees and their tent was surrounded by palms and near a brackish spring. The tent was dug down into the ground and anchored with a low wall of soil and rocks. Chester wrote to his family that it was safe against anything but a direct hit from a bomb, and its double thickness canvas was apparently proof against ack-ack splinters.108

  The Germans were bombing the town when Chester wrote his first letter from Tobruk to his family. He could hear the drone of aero engines high above, then the heavy thump of bombs bursting over the nearby hill and the sharper sound of ack-ack, as he mused about conditions in the besieged fortress, and about the character of the Aussie Digger.

  . . . the worst thing about Tobruk is that there’s no escape from war here . . . the men in hospital have been bombed . . . men in swimming have been machine gunned . . . men in the rest camp have been shelled . . . men spelling on roadwork have been bombed . . . and in all cases there have been casualties . . . but they still go on as though the war were hundreds of miles away. The more I see of the casual, happy-go-lucky, what-the-hell attitude of the ordinary Digger, the more I realise what a wonderful bloke he really is. Henry Lawson’s theory that the only thing that matters in life is ‘Mateship’ is proved over and over again here. These men hanging on under pressure for months on end, working day after day at the same old things, digging trenches, laying mines, putting in barbed wire, carrying rations, mending roads and so on, or else just sitting cramped up in weapons pits in the salient, waiting, waiting, waiting while the sand and dust drifts over them . . . the thing that helps them stick it is their mates . . . I rather think that when they get into action it isn’t so much the cause they’re fighting for that keeps them going; it’s the fact that they mustn’t let their mates down. Diggers will go back through hell to get a wounded cobber back, they’ll risk anything to give support to their pals.109

  Wilmot qualified this view of the Australian soldiers: ‘In some ways the ordinary Digger is a bit of an undisciplined bastard when he’s on leave.’ The reference almost certainly understated Wilmot’s true feelings about the unruliness and violent behaviour of some Diggers but he wrote that he was prepared to forgive them anything ‘after seeing the way they come through a tough spot. It’s true they’re a bit cocky . . . but they’ve got something to be cocky about . . . they’re not smart soldiers, but they know how to fight.’110

  Lawrence Cecil had suggested that Wilmot write the full story of the defence of Tobruk and Chester began to research the siege and the key battles. He had the support of the Tobruk commander, General Morshead, and access to the garrison files and reports, and he spent a lot of time at the Fortress headquarters reading and talking to those who’d been there throughout. He was given a place to work in the office and a car to get to the units dispersed around the town and the defensive perimeter. An initial report, The Holding of Tobruk, outlined some of the key actions and gave an overview of the five months of the siege.

  The enemy has tried to drive them out, to starve them out and to bomb them out, but he’s failed. Here the AIF and the British and Indians who’ve fought with them, have waged one of the greatest defensive actions of all time. Technically invested, they have broken out in punishing raids so often since May the enemy has been far more on the defensive than we have. It may be too much to say that the men in Tobruk saved Egypt in April and May when we were deeply involved in Greece and Crete, but they certainly made a major Axis offensive against Egypt impossible . . . But the men of Tobruk have given us more than time . . . they’ve given the world an example of firm courage and unbreakable spirit at a moment when the fortunes of war seemed to be turning against us.111

  Soon after he arrived, Wilmot went out to one of the hotspots, the Salient – an area of flat land held by the Germans that bit into the line of the Allied perimeter where ‘the German line and ours is a series of machine-gun posts and weapons pits dug from the open desert. In parts the two lines are under 200 yards apart, and though there isn’t the continuous line of trenches t
hat both sides had in the last war, here for the first time in this war you have Australian and German troops facing each other across a narrow strip of “No Man’s Land”.’112 Wilmot gave an atmospheric picture of the Salient in that early night-time visit to the frontline with BBC war correspondent Edward Ward and some British and Australian officers.

  After about half an hour’s bumping along we got to a bit of a hollow – the furthest forward the vehicles could go. A chink of light from a hole in the ground beckoned us to company headquarters. We lifted a ground sheet and dropped down a man-hole that led into an old water-cistern – roughly pear-shaped and about 30 feet long. Through a fug of cigarette smoke and dust the light of hurricane lamps lit the cistern. Fellows were sitting around eating and talking. Their evening meal had just arrived and they were busy making the most of it. It was the same meal we’d had earlier – bully beef stew with potatoes and onions; boiled rice and tinned apricots; tea – a pretty good feed – in the circumstances. It was pretty warm in the cistern but at least you could have a light there. There were sticky flycatchers hanging from the roof, but they hadn’t been able to do anything about the fleas. I realised that after I’d been there a few minutes.

  From the cistern we took another guide and went on about half a mile to the forward posts. As usual in the desert where there are no landmarks the guide took a sig. [signal] wire in his hand and we followed the track to the first post easily. It was one of the concrete posts the Italians had built. Down inside it some men were sleeping in the corridor; up on top men were manning every fire position. Further on still we came to a post right in the salient – one that the Australians had had to dig themselves. It had been hard work for the post could only be dug under cover of darkness – it had been some job getting down through the rock, sand-bagging the fire positions and wiring the post round. But by hard work and ingenuity the men had made themselves as comfortable as you can be in a shallow trench that’s continually swept by drifting dust. On the way up and on the way back every few minutes enemy flares lit up the plain and half a dozen times bursts of machine gun bullets sang past. Probably they were much further away than they seemed, but we went to ground just in case. Altogether it was a quiet night, but very often the men who carry the ammo, rations and water forward from company headquarters to the frontline posts run into a little local hate, but somehow or other they manage to get through, for the posts in the salient must be kept supplied.113

  Bill MacFarlane was forced to return to Gaza for repairs to the recording gear before they could begin the major recordings covering the previous five months of the siege. With MacFarlane away, Wilmot made plans for recording actuality of the sounds of battle in Tobruk, as well as his stories on the defence of the garrison. It was impossible to get the recording equipment to the front lines of the Salient. Vehicles could not get within 1000 metres even at night and the equipment was too heavy to carry.114 Wilmot wanted to record actuality of a dive-bombing attack by enemy planes and had been scouting out locations down by the harbour which he planned to try once MacFarlane returned. He wrote to Cecil, who was up north in Syria recording soldiers for the ‘Voices from Overseas’ programs: ‘Had a hell of a raid here yesterday – 75 planes . . . 40 bombs in our wadi . . . one ten yards from the tent . . . four, thirty yards away. Twenty-five holes in the tent . . . I wasn’t here and luckily we have the gear stowed away in a pretty safe place.’115

  MacFarlane returned to Tobruk a few weeks later. Wilmot had been ill, and he was frustrated at having no recording gear and angry at delays and censorship from the Tobruk command. He wrote a letter to his friend, Major George Fenton, the military censor in Cairo. Chester complained about delays in the passing of scripts at Tobruk and what seemed like some inane objections from the fortress HQ. He was also angry at the blocking of his story, In a Dug-out in Tobruk – ‘I have showed this to half a dozen platoon commanders and serjeants [sic] and they have all agreed that it is typical and true . . . so does the Brigadier who commands the sector. My feeling is that direct writing is what is wanted these days.’116 Part of the script re-created the casual conversation of the three men in the cramped dug-out and described the conditions on the frontlines: wounded unable to be brought back for treatment until after dark, cramped conditions, flies and fleas, dull rations and the boredom and ‘nervous strain of holding the most vital part of the perimeter, where the pressure’s greatest’.117

  The Sounds of War

  Wilmot and MacFarlane set out to record the sound of air raids and dive bombing, and set up the recording equipment in an unused weapons pit near a gun position on the south side of the harbour. ‘Fifty yards away on our right is a Bofors gun manned by a crew of Scotsmen; 200 yards to the north is the harbour dotted with the hulks and masts of wrecks and a half a mile away across the water is the shell-and-bomb-torn town of Tobruk – target of more than 100 serious air raids a month for the past five months.’118

  Chester and Bill’s gun pit was built up with rocks, and partly roofed over with boards donated by the Scottish Bofors crew for protection against shrapnel from the ack-ack fire bursting right above them. In the cramped space MacFarlane slept between the batteries and the recording gear. To guard against the noise of the wind, the microphone was put in a box frame covered by a blanket and hung from a beam at one end of the pit. Wilmot sat roped off in a little pen just over a metre from the mike so that his voice didn’t drown out the important background noise of the air raids.119 He drew a sketch of the pit in a letter to Edith.

  Chester Wilmot sketch of gun pit at Tobruk Harbour – ‘A. Batteries B. Recorder C. Amplifier D. Bill (not quite so recumbent as that) E. Box with mike in it F. Chair (nice soft bucket seat from a bus) where I sit while waiting G. Rope to keep me away from the mike H. Board’

  For two weeks in September, Wilmot and MacFarlane recorded the sound of air raids from the pit by the harbour – and Chester would spot for planes with his binoculars. As bad luck would have it, there were no Stuka dive bomber raids with the blood-chilling, wailing siren that Chester wanted to record: the Tobruk air defences had gradually neutralised much of the effectiveness of the German dive bombers.120 However, Chester and Bill also made recordings with their neighbours, the Scottish crew manning the Bofors, with whom Chester shared a bottle of whisky – the first scotch the gunners had seen in many months.121

  It required skill to operate the recording gear in the field, particularly during the raids, and Chester paid deserved tribute to Bill MacFarlane’s abilities.

  Working under these conditions Bill MacFarlane has an unenviable job. Cutting discs for broadcasting is no easy matter any time but when it comes to setting up the gear and cutting the discs by the light of an electric torch shaded by a khaki handkerchief, you need great skill and patience. Just as difficult is the problem of judging just how loud a certain explosion is going to be. He has to sit with his hand on the controls ready to fade down as soon as the extra loud whistle of a bomb tells him that the burst will be too loud to record at normal level.122

  By now, they had been through many raids and bombings. There had been 25 air raid warnings and 15 planes had dropped bombs in the previous 24 hours when Chester wrote to Edith:

  I find I only feel exhilarated – I feel much as I would if I were waiting for a 120-yard hurdle race to begin or for a Test broadcast to start. I don’t feel scared in the ordinary sense at all. Six months ago I should have been scared stiff but now it all seems rather remote – what’s happening round me doesn’t seem to have any personal relationship with me – I am a spectator looking at something going on.123

  An earlier, nerve-wracking visit to the perimeter at night also prompted Wilmot to reflect that:

  . . . this is very trivial compared with what the troops go through, but there’s this point . . . it’s extremely good to make yourself do things like that when you don’t have to. An ordinary Digger has to go back for rations or with a message . . . well, that’s that, the decision is made for him . . . but when
you haven’t got to do something, the decision you make to do it, is very good for your Character, I’m sure.124

  Wilmot recorded his series of programs on the siege and defence of Tobruk, including the Easter Battle and the Battle of the Salient. He spoke to senior officers and soldiers, got their stories in their own words and scripted it for them to read on the recordings, and this also provided the starting point for the book he wrote after returning from the Middle East, which was the first definitive account of the siege.

  Around the end of September Wilmot and MacFarlane made some battle recordings that again extended the ability of radio to create an actual sound-picture for the audience at home. One battle recording was from a frontline post, tunnelled into the side of the escarpment overlooking the road to Derna. The recording gear was inside the tunnel and the microphone was set up in an open, sand-bagged machine-gun pit on the slope outside, overlooking the enemy positions on the plain below. For one report MacFarlane recorded Wilmot’s talks with the soldiers of the post and the ‘whine and crump of shells and the swish and crack of bursting mortars which fell around the post’.125 In another, called ‘Sound and Fury’, Wilmot delivered his commentary over the sound of the guns, giving the listeners in Australia a vivid, real-time picture of the battle.