大象传媒

These are the memories of my father, Lawrence Queen. He was a young boy, only about 10, when his father was drafted into the War.

Daddy didn't want to go into the war and was not happy about it. He had 5 children of his own, and also was taking care his brothers and sisters after their parents had died. He was nearly 38 when he was drafted, and just after he was sent off, the government quit sending men that old to fight.

When Dad went down to the draft board, they wanted to put him in the Marines, but he just said NO! So, the recruiter said, 'Where would you rather be?', and Dad said, 'Well, I always liked those sailor outfits!', so they put him in the Navy!

He was sent off to the South Pacific, and I remember the day Pearl Harbour was bombed. I was playing baseball down near Parker High (the local high school, about a mile away), and somebody came out and said Hawaii had been bombed. I ran all the way home and found Mother had already heard the news. She was alright though, and said everything would ok, and I guess it was, for us anyway.

Daddy and Mother had both worked in the mill (the local textile mill) before he was sent off, and Mother worked there still when he was away. Daddy also was a watch repairman, and he was good at it too. While he was in the war, he would repair watches for servicemen and officers.

Now, he wasn't exactly supposed to be making any extra money from doing this work, but there were ways around that. He would write to Mother, and tell her to place an order for any watch repair supplies he needed. She would, and then would send the order to him. So after Dad fixed the watches, the men would either send money directly to Mother, or they would give Daddy extra rations of things like cigarettes or chocolate, and he could sell those on the 'black market'. That way, he was sending an extra $200. a month home to Mother. When the war was over, they had quite alot of money saved up that way."

We had it easy. Charles and Johnny (14 and 16 year old brothers) worked at the airport; it was a glider training school. Johnny almost got killed by a glider landing; it hit him in the head. Since they were working at the airport, which was vital to National Defense, our family got more gas (petrol).

We had 2 cars during the War - a Model A Ford and a Chevy. Now, tyres were rationed by the government, but you didn't need to buy those very often so it was ok. And we had plenty of gas.

Money was NOT scarce. You see, everybody worked that could. But, you couldn't spend that money, cause the only 'currency' was ration stamps. People could, and would, make money off ration stamps. Sugar, coffee, nylons (ration stamps)...these were all things you could trade or sell.

The ration stamps chips were blue or red, and they were made of a pressed fibreboard -about the size of a dime or a penny...this was basically 'change'. You had ration books as well.

Everybody knew when the stores got in a supply of something, and people would stand in line for hours to buy things, even if they didn't use it themselves (like cigarettes). And people were greedy...they would hoard stamps, and any other thing of value. But we got on ok.

The stores had to charge a set price for the goods, and it was set by the government. You could go to jail if you were 'price gouging'.

One thing I remember eating during the war was 'Oz beef'...that you could buy without ration stamps. But you know what it was? Horse meat! I didn't like it much, but it was either that or go hungry.

We raised pigs and had a garden, but not at our house, it was over about a mile away. Me and Pete (brother) would go over every morning before school, and every afternoon after school and feed the pigs and weed the garden. Everybody on our block had pigs just about. And chickens."

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.