Hello,

Lefty, I have been back to Australia eleven times over the years visiting my wife's family.

Your second question is a difficult one to narrow down. There were places and situations in which merely being there deserved a degree of merit. I witnessed selfless actions of men countless times.

If I were to remember just one event, and one fellow from the past, who's real name I don't think I ever knew, was called Strawberry. He was aboard the transport ship Sands with the 112th at the Arawe landings of '43, and what he did happened a few hundred yards off shore. Strawberry was quite a swimmer, he pulled a number of men to the few rubber boats we had remaining before he became one of the missing men. We were put ashore in about 15 rubber rafts just before dawn due to the shallows caused by the coral reefs, the out going current had us paddling to shore long enough for the japs to open up with machine gun and automatic cannon fire. We lost a dozen of the boats, it's very hard to swim in boots and leggings, our only flotation was an absurd inflatable belt which looked like two over sized garden hoses on a web belt.

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All the Best
Jack