Life In The RAAF Part II

Another great memory from my Point Cook days was when the WRAAF OIC very kindly organised a free flight home for me on a Hercules for the Easter stand-down.  That was an experience I will never forget.  The Herc left from Laverton Base (about 10miles from Point Cook) and flew north to Richmond (north west of Sydney in New South Wales) where we were on the ground for a couple of hours and had lunch there.  Then off we went again, further north to Amberley (in South East Queensland), where we arrived in the late afternoon and my parents were waiting to drive me home to Brisbane.  These huge workhorses carried quite large payloads and the passengers sat in sling back seats along the side of the fuselage.  There was no insulation or pressurisation, so the noise level from the four powerful engines roaring along outside the fuselage was deafening.  We all had earmuff type headsets issued to us (but weren’t allowed to keep them!).

I spent most of the flight praying that the massive pile of equipment in front of me, and that to my inexperienced eyes appeared to be most insecurely secured, wouldn’t land up in my lap if we hit a ‘bump’!  The Loadmaster who was a rather exalted Flight Sergeant and rather crusty demonstrated a somewhat warped sense of humour by grinning at me and yelling that if it did all come crashing down, I wouldn’t know too much about it, so I shouldn’t worry!  Well, it may not have been the most comfortable flight I’ve ever experienced, but it was free (in an era when air travel was still exorbitantly expensive) and it was definitely FUN!  And maybe, more than anything so far, helped me realise that I was actually part of the Royal Australian Air Force.

One of the peculiarities of service life in those days was the requirement that all clothing – from the smallest item to the largest – was required to be folded or hung in a precise and totally inflexible routine.  Woe betide anyone whose underwear drawer was pulled open on inspection evening and who “smalls” were not precisely folded and lined up according to the RAAF law governing all aspects of ‘how thou shalt maintain thy wardrobe’!  Funnily enough, to this day, I still fold my undies in this manner!!  At a recent reunion, a group of us were discussing the aspects of service life that each of us had taken into civilian life – and without exception (amidst much laughter) everyone, male and female, confessed we still kept our clothes exactly as we had learnt during those years.  Of course, I could never convince my civilian husband, or my children, to follow these guidelines….

My children have been both amused and mind-boggled by the fact that we were given a uniform allowance (covering all items – including stockings, socks, handkerchiefs, underwear) and our service number and name had to be clearly marked on each item.  In that era, our winter working day uniform consisted of a navy serge skirt, battle jacket (with buttons, not zips), blue/grey long-sleeved shirt, plain black tie, navy blue cap with brass WRAAF crest, black leather dress gloves, black lace-up shoes, and flesh-coloured stockings – with seams!!!  And, one had to ensure that those wretched seams remained straight all day, too.  Our dress uniform was identical except for the jacket.  We exchanged our Battle Jackets for our 1A dress jackets which sported real brass buttons.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any surviving photos which show these.

We were expected to maintain the exact number of items initially issued and woe betide anyone, come a surprise uniform and kit inspection, whose clothing didn’t measure up.  This was not an issue regarding our uniforms proper, but maintaining the correct number of pairs of stockings and all those unmentionables, all neatly named, was more of a challenge.  Many of us sat up in bed after lights out, stitching name tags on the waistbands of undies by torchlight, hoping the hut NCO wouldn’t notice and come barging in.  Of course, if we all kept everything up to scratch all the time, it wouldn’t have been an issue – but where’s the fun in that???