Most of the others at 4 STT were trainee clerks who George objected to us recorders calling `shiny bums'. While we were calculating aircraft positions and working out intercepts, we could hear them learning typing to music which we would whistle while we worked.

I made three close friends and the four of us spent most of our time together. Serious, bespectacled George had been a book-keeper and shared my interest in classical music; light-hearted Jack, a former draughtsman, was a jazz fanatic, and dreamy Mick, who had been a wool classer, was an avid reader. We went together on tram rides to the beach at Glenelg, with a broad white sandy beach and a long jetty; on the little steam train that wound through the hills, settled with market gardens and orchards, up to Mount Lofty where we could look down on the city quite close below us, and to the pictures. The latest films went to the troops up North, so most of those we saw were old. One that impressed me was My Little Chickadee, with Mae West and WC Fields, in which Mae recited Shakespeare. Another was Watch on the Rhine with Paul Lukas which I liked so much I saw it again a few nights later. George discovered that the ABC radio studios had a small lounge at street level where anyone could sit and listen to their programs. We sometimes went there to enjoy symphony concerts.

George had family friends in Adelaide who took us to their seaside house at Victor Harbour, over an hour's drive away, full of weekenders and with a long surf beach that was quite deserted, it being winter. I was surprised at the hospitality lavished on us and all servicemen ─ perhaps it was because in Adelaide there were fewer of us than in Melbourne. I liked being in Adelaide which seemed calm and relaxed, less affected by the War than Melbourne.

Is it because the Yanks aren’t here? It all seems unhurried and friendly.

While stationed in Adelaide we heard of the Allied D-Day

Landing At Cherbourg in Normandy. I watched newsreels showing portable harbours and prefabricated bridges, the bows of ships opening to disgorge hundreds of troops and tanks as transport planes dropped paratroopers, and ships shelled the enemy-held positions. The Germans fought back with everything they had but they hadn't a chance. Enormous British, American and Free French forces were advancing towards Paris. The meticulous planning of it all impressed me even more than its execution.