My name is June Olive Smith. I was June Olive Prior before I was married.
Dad was in the First World War, well before I was born. He didn’t get married until after the war. He went to the Middle East with the Army. They were all volunteers. He also went to France. After that he was in hospital and he went to England to recover.
My father was involved in the Red Cross, that was in the Second World War and he also had his own business, a wholesale paper merchant.
I joined the Australian Army Medical Women's Services (AAMWS) which is a sister service to the Australian Women's Army Service (AWAS).
The Australian Army Medical Women's Services were just a little bit more exclusive I suppose. The AWAS were a bit of everything – we thought we were a bit special because we were the AAMWS and were supposed to have some connection with the medical side of things - doctors, nurses. We weren’t nurses, not by a long shot but we were supposed to have some sort of nurse training.
I was 19 in 1942 when I enlisted and I enlisted because it was expected. Also, I was working in my father’s office and because it was wartime it was deadly dull. We heard often, 'The war will be over soon, tomorrow. The war will be over by Christmas and you need to be in it.’
I enlisted in Sydney, we had to go down to Victoria Barracks. I used to go home every night by tram and bus. There was a big parade ground there and you didn’t dare walk across the parade ground, no, that was not on. You had to walk round it. It was a long walk right round before we got to our little office. I was a Clerk in the clothing store of the Victoria Barracks.
After that I went to the 114th Australian General Hospital at Kenmore near Goulburn. I was supposed to be in the clothing store but I was in the Orderly Room. It was a glorified business office really. All discharged AWAS, AAMWS and absent-without-leave offenders were processed. They used to have to come up and get their certificates and say why they were away without leave and face up to the CO’s [Commanding Officers] to see what their detention was.
Everyone had to have cardigans. I remember we couldn’t just have a cardigan with buttons – you had to do the buttons up. If you went outside you had to put your hat on – that was pretty important.
Kenmore was a couple of miles out from the city. There was a picture show in Goulburn - we went to the pictures there and went to a couple of hotels there. We used to have dinner at the hotels. Some hotels were a lot more popular than others.
There was one right down by the railway station, that was a bit of a no-no. We weren’t supposed to go down there. A lot of the men used to go down there but we weren’t supposed to go down there. They never really told us why. We used to go down to find out why we couldn’t go down there.
And occasionally there would be other service people there and very often an older group of civilian men who were there would send a bottle of wine to the girls. They thought it was the right thing to do because the service people were there.
I was later allocated to go to New Guinea. We were put on a train from Central Railway Station, Sydney and we went up to Queensland. There was a lot of troop movements during the war. We weren’t regarded as being true troops – we were just women - I suppose’“Sheilas’! We didn’t like that name.
In New Guinea I was in a Quartermasters Store, where every day the Wards would send their allocations for what they needed. Always toilet paper, bread, and sugar on the list.
I remember the first day in the Quartermaster Store and everybody else walked in. They said '“oh, Sergeant won’t like this, he won’t like women in the store.’ However, Sergeant came in and he wasn’t such a bad old soul.
That’s where I met Jack, he was the Quartermasters Sergeant.
I remember, some of the men wanted lemon juice and various other things. I thought 'what do they want all those special things for?' We found out they had a dugout where they used to make ‘Jungle Juice’.
Every week we were allowed two bottles of beer because it was hot. I could have very easily kept it to sell for a profit. Everyone wanted your ration of beer, oh yes you could have sold it quite happily to somebody else.
I was in Lae, New Guinea when peace was declared. It was a few months before I came home on a hospital ship.
It was difficult being away from home. We looked forward to receiving letters from home.
Patients with Malaria more than anything else came into the hospital. It was a hard one to treat.
Jack came home before me. I was still up in New Guinea. Jack looked around to find a farm in Australia, but that was not real easy.
Jack returned to New Guinea to put a ring on my finger. I think he got down on one knee and proposed. I know he went and saw my parents. He had quite a bit of charm about him. They lived in Mosman. He must have presented himself well because they gave their blessing.
Eventually we found a farm, well, Jack had found a farm at Kurmond.
I got married 6 July 1946. I’ve still got the ring. The diamond one is my engagement ring. A very simple ring, it was during the war, there weren’t many diamond rings to be found, they were not as available as they are now.
This is the story of June Smith as told to Carla Edwards.
